Help with time calculations

[icemaker]

I've tried numerous searches but can't seem to find what I need to do. I need to read a file with two columns, the first column is the time of an event. I then need to calculate the time between each event (row). I know I need to use a for loop to read through the file but I cannot find any information on what the best way to calculate the time between each event so that I can get stastics like average time per cycle, time since last cycle etc.The only way I can think of is to read the file as a string and then parse the time but that doesn't seem like an efficient way of doing things.

example: data.csv

8:00         10

8:12         8

10:00       2

11:12       3

[GerdW]

Hi icemaker,

when the time is saved as HH:MM you have to convert this string to a number before oyu can do any calclulations with it.

You may try ScanFromString with a format string of "%<%H:%M>T" for the beginning...

[icemaker]

Gerd,

Thanks for the reply. I get what you mean by converting from string to numbers, makes sense. I tried your scan from string and I get a -32400 like number for the time in a double indicator. Is it incorrect or am I doing something wrong?

[robweaver · Accepted solution]

Use "%<%H:%M>t" as the format string instead. The capital T formats the time as an absolute time, which based on your format isn't what you're working with. The lowercase t will format it as a relative time stamp and you should be able to calculate your time between events.

Hope this helps,

Rob

[icemaker]

I see the difference in time with the smaller t. Really my question is more of what exactly do I do with that number it pumps out? How do I subtract one reading from another to see the time between? Thanks for the help so far it has been great.

[Dennis_Knutson]

On the numeric palette is the subtract function. That works quite well in subtracting one value from another.

[DFGray]

Note that converted times are in seconds.  Absolute times are seconds from midnight Jan 1, 1904.

[icemaker]

Where is my staples easy button? I guess that was an obvious one I should have tried. Thanks again gentlemen you have been a big help.

[DFGray]

Couldn't resist...