Posted: March 17 2003 at 13:46 | IP Logged

I'm not sure if this is a bug or I'm not clear how things work. I wrote a macro to create timed events based on SUNRISE, SUNSET etc. For the current days events the System Variables are OK but for future events I need a calculation. ph_getsuntime() looks like the macro of choice. The results however seemed a little off so I compared them with the System Variables.

Here's my calculations:

ph_getsuntime(date(string(today(),mm-dd-yyyy)),2) = 16:41:37

[SUNSET]  = 18:25:02

where: today() evaluates to: 3/17/2003 13:29:55

I thought the results would be the same. What am I missing?

Posted: March 17 2003 at 14:38 | IP Logged

Patrick,

I don't know if I would call it a bug or a shortcoming of the manual .

In your first example, if you change the part "date(string" to "datetime(string" then you should get back the proper answer.  The function is expecting a datetime variable instead of a date.  Since this is the case, you can simplify your function by just calling: ph_getsuntime(today(),2).

If you are trying to calculate dates in the future, you can also use: ph_getsuntime(relativedate(today(),3),2) to calculate 3 days from the current day.  The today function will either return a date or a datetime depending upon the context, so it will work in the above situations.

HTH,

Dave.

Posted: March 17 2003 at 16:03 | IP Logged

Thanks Dave. I'll try it. My macro really wants the actual future date but I guess I can convert the date to days ahead to use relativedate()

Pat

Posted: March 17 2003 at 16:10 | IP Logged

Pat,

If you know the actual date, then you can code it like in the example below:

ph_getsuntime(2003-03-17 00:00:00,2).

You can also use relativedate with an actual date (or rather datetime):

ph_getsuntime(relativedate(2003-03-17 00:00:00,5),2).

HTH,

Dave.