Informat (ParseDate) function with time

[#1]

Hi,

I have a question about Informat function (or its alias ParseDate). If I have a string with date and time information, and I try to parse date on JMP 15.2.0.

str="2022-10-22 16:25:37";

datetime= Informat( str, "yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm:ss" );
show(type(datetime));
show(datetime);

I get output different kind of outputs, depending on date time settings (Win 10).

Regional format English (United Kingdom):
str = "2022-10-22 16:23:37";
Type(datetime) = "Date";
datetime = 22Oct2022:16:23:37;

Or Regional format Finnish (Finland):

str = "2022-10-22 16:23:37";
Type(datetime) = "Number";
datetime = .;

Is there a function that could parse time also? Or are there suggestions how this could be done?

[#2]

Check out if using << Use Locale() helps at all.

JMP was fairly bad at managing managing time (and dates) before JMP16. I would most likely parse the string to year, month, day, hour, minute and second. Then sum those to get date_time. With JMP16 you could most likely just use Format Pattern

Maybe this can give some ideas:

Names Default To Here(1);

str = "2022-10-22 16:25:37";

date = Word(1, str, " ");
time = Word(2, str, " ");
y = Num(Word(1, date, "-"));
m = Num(Word(2, date, "-"));
d = Num(Word(3, date, "-"));

time_separator = Left(Regex(Format(Today(), "h:m:s"), "\d", "", GLOBALREPLACE), 1);

hh = Num(Word(1, time, time_separator));
mm = Num(Word(2, time, time_separator));
ss = Num(Word(3, time, time_separator));

date_time = Date DMY(d, m, y) + hh * 60 * 60 + mm * 60 + ss;
AsDate(date_time);

[#3]

I have used << Use Locale() to overcome issues with date and time formats. The example you provided did not solve issue, I  think that I come back to this later when I have time (pun intended). The issue with the example is most probably solved with << Use Locale(). I'll also try Format Pattern, if I get newer version of the JMP.

Thanks again sharing your knowledge.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Here is one way to handle the issue

str="2022-10-22 16:25:37";

datetime = datemdy(num(word(2,str," -:")),
	num(word(3,str," -:")),
	num(word(1,str," -:")) ) +
	3600*num(word(4,str," -:")) +
	60 * num(word(5,str," -:")) +
	num(word(6,str," -:")
);
show(format(datetime,"m/d/y h:m:s"));

It shows in the log

Format(datetime, "m/d/y h:m:s") = "10/22/2022 4:25:37 PM";

[#5]

Thank you, this example works for the datetime settings tested.

[#6]

It seems that in Jmp 15.2 Informat just ignored fancy patterns like 

datetime= Informat( str, "yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm:ss" );

Even pattern = "hello" results in 

In later versions, Jmp will tell the user:

Unknown format: hello

What works:
Informat with the option Format Pattern: 

str="2022-10-22 16:25:37";
datetime= Informat( str, "Format Pattern", "<YYYY></><MM></><DD> <hh><:><mm><:><ss>" );
show(type(datetime));
show(datetime);