Use Schedule Start End from Variable Container

Plugins & Plugin Development Program Logic (PLEG)
1

I’m looking for a way to test start and end times that are stored in a Variable Container. Rather than create a PLEG Schedule I’d like to store event start/end times in VC variables and use them to test in PLEG Conditions. This way the times can be changed without requiring a change to PLEG, a restart of Vera, and allow them to be modified by other processes.

Because they are string values they don’t compare well, and especially if it crosses midnight. Any suggestions?

2

The normal Lua approach would be to convert the date/time strings to Unix epoch time with the [tt]os.time / os.date[/tt] functions, and then do a numeric comparison.

3

The # operator will provide a numeric timestamp that can be compared with the values in the VC plugin.

When you use numeric operators (==. <, >, >+, <=, -. +) it will convert the string arguments to a numeric value.

4

ak, thanks very much. Problem is i’m not even remotely familiar with Lua programming so the learning curve is going to be very steep.

5

[quote=“RichardTSchaefer, post:3, topic:181130”]The # operator will provide a numeric timestamp that can be compared with the values in the VC plugin.

When you use numeric operators (==. <, >, >+, <=, -. +) it will convert the string arguments to a numeric value.[/quote]

Richard, thanks. Does that mean that I can say:

StartTime :: VC_Var1_Value
EndTime “” VC_Var2_Value

CurrentTime #

DoSomething :: StartTime;CurrentTime;EndTime

or some such?

How would the Start/End string be formatted, with or without punctuation (e.g. 01:00:00 or 010000)?

6

If you have some inputs:

VCMinTime A timestamp bound to some Variable Container Value
VCMaxTime Another timestamp bound to some other Variable Container Value
SomeInput Some other Input you want to compare with

SomeCondition VCMinTime < #SomeInput AND #SomeInput < VCMaxTime