Re: st: Time to run a program

[David Kantor <dkantor@jhu.edu>]

At 06:06 PM 5/12/2004 +0200, Jean-Benoit Hardouin wrote:
> this command permet to display the date/time, but don't solve my problem 
> (Perhaps I have not see all the subtleties of this command).
>
> My problem is to compute the time between the beginning and the end of the 
> running of a program.
>
> Thank you for your help.
> [...]

As you mentioned in your earlier message, you can take the time using 
$S_TIME (or, equivalently, c(current_time) ).

I'm usually content to just display them and mentally take the 
difference.  But it is possible to automate this.  You would need to 
textually take apart the time value into its components, and convert to 
numbers.  Thus:
 local time1 = c(current_time)
 scalar hour1 = real(substr("`time1'", 1, 2))
 scalar min1 = real(substr("`time1'", 4, 2))
 scalar sec1 = real(substr("`time1'", 7, 2))

Do the same for another moment in time.

Then you need to subtract them.  The easiest way would be to convert them 
into seconds (within the day): hour1 * 3600 + min1 * 60 + sec1.

Of course, there are complications if the run spans different days.  I 
leave that to you.

Good luck.
-- David

David Kantor
Institute for Policy Studies
Johns Hopkins University
dkantor@jhu.edu
410-516-5404

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