Timestamp class inside.

[Paul E Johnson]

I want to put the day/time of creation into file names in order to keep
records on runs. I put the same stamp on files that save parameters,
data, etc, and after a few weeks it is the only way I've found to
remember what I did.  I found myself rewriting the code that fetches the
time and converts to a string over and over, making the same mistakes
over and over.  Aha, create a class, use over and over! I settled in on
this way, that avoids overrunning buffers (so far as I know), doesn't
leak memory, and gives output I want.  Feel free to use it if you like,
or improve and redistribute.

I wish something like this was in Swarm itself so I could call it from a
Java program, so I won't have to learn how to do the timestamp in Java
:).  If you have Java code that does this, please share.


TimeStamp.h:
#import <defobj/Create.h>

@interface TimeStamp:CreateDrop
{
}

+(char *) getTimeStamp;

@end

TimeStamp.m:

#import "TimeStamp.h"  
#import <misc.h>

@implementation TimeStamp

+(char *) getTimeStamp
{
  int i;
  char * cD;
  char * charDate;
  
    int notch=0;
    time_t currentTime = time (NULL);
    cD = ctime(&currentTime);
    
    charDate= strcpy (( char *)
xmalloc(sizeof(char)*(1+strlen(cD))),cD);
    charDate[strlen(cD)-1]= 0; //remove newline
    for(i=0; i< strlen(cD); i++)
      {
        if (charDate[i]==' ') charDate[i]='_';
        else if (charDate[i]==':') 
          {
            if (notch == 0)
              {
                charDate[i] = 'h';
                notch = 1;
              }
            else if (notch == 1)
              charDate[i]='m';
          }

        else if (charDate[i] == '\n')
          charDate[i] = '\0';
      }
  return charDate;
}
@end

I call the static method one time at the beginning of a job, save the
resulting string, and then use it for the output files.

FILE *outputFile;
char outputFileName[50];

char *charDate = NULL;
charDate = [TimeStamp getTimeStamp];

sprintf(outputFileName, "DataCulture_%s", charDate);

So after this all runs, I've got a data output file with a name that
helps:

DataCulture_Sat_Mar__3_14h50m55_2001

-- 
Paul E. Johnson                       email: address@hidden
Dept. of Political Science            http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn
University of Kansas                  Office: (785) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66045                FAX: (785) 864-5700

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