plusMinutes in rule - how to?

[martindk (Martin)]

I am struggling with a bit of code in a OH2.1 rule to show me what the time is in “now + XX minutes” ; I have a formula calculating the minutes into the future I need - but I cannot figure out how to use the .plusMinutes to get it working.

Basically, I want to show what the time is when I add the number of minutes I have calculated - to the current time of day.

Here is my draft (which keeps failing):

var Number min_to_comfort = 142.45   // This is just a test - normally there will be a formula behind this

var SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat( "HH:mm" )
var String Timestamp = df.format( new Date() )
var String Time2 = df.plusMinutes(min_to_comfort).format( new Date() )
			
logInfo("POOL", "Pool heating has been initated at " + Timestamp + ". Comfort temp estimated reached at " + Time2)

Anyone who have done this - or can see what I am doing wrong ?

[bennYx0x (Benjamin)]

Check out this thread, with a lot of useful information about Date handling:

[Deprecated] Design Pattern: Time Of Day

[Edit] Adde link to Time of Day State Machine For years now I’ve let this Design Pattern post get out of hand so I’m going to rein it in a bit now. It’s really expanded away from what it’s originally intended to be (i.e. a way to illustrate how to code a time based state machine) into a thread that is mostly about the example, Time of Day. It’s partially my fault for naming the thread “Time of Day”. But there are better alternatives for Time of Day in specific and time based state machines in g…

My first shot would be

var String Time2 = df.format(  now.plusMinutes(min_to_comfort) )

Btw: I also dont think that plusMinutes() accepts decimal values. If you still need that, consider using plusSeconds()

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

@martindk

Here is my draft (which keeps failing):

Always post the errors you are getting or the incorrect behavior you are seeing.

Benjamin is correct, you cannot pass a floating point to plusMinutes, you should use plusSeconds instead or string them together:

now.plusMinutes(142).plusSeconds(27)

It makes no sense to print the TimeStamp because every log statement is already printed with a timestamp.

You can use the standard String Formatters features you have to format DateTime in Item labels so you should be able to do something like:

logInfo("POOL", "Pool heating has been initiated at %1$tH:%1$tM. Comfort temp estimated reached at %2$tH:%2$tM.", now, now.plusMinutes(142).plusSeconds(27))

[martindk (Martin)]

OK - sorry for not being precise enough. My error went away after using plusSeconds instead.

I now have this rule-snippet working:

			var Number tub_min_to_comfort = 148.12212    // This is just a test value. The real value will come from a formula when I know what I am doing ;-)
			var Number tub_sec_to_comfort = tub_min_to_comfort.intValue() * 60
			logInfo("POOL", "tub_min_to_comfort: " + tub_min_to_comfort.intValue())		// Rounding to full minutes (no decimals)	
			logInfo("POOL", "tub_sec_to_comfort: " + tub_sec_to_comfort)			

			var SimpleDateFormat df1 = new SimpleDateFormat( "HH:mm" )
			var String TimeNow = df1.format( new Date() )

			var DateTimeType TimeComfort = now.plusSeconds(tub_sec_to_comfort)
			logInfo("POOL","TimeComfort: " + TimeComfort)       // shows: TimeComfort: 2017-12-12T01:07:09.494Z

			logInfo("POOL", "Pool heating has been initiated at " + TimeNow + ". Comfort temp estimated reached at " + TimeComfort)

I still struggle with the formatting of the contents of “TimeComfort”. I cannot get this formatted as HH:mm - just like the current time. I have been googling like mad to find examples - but no luck.
@rlkoshak I tried your logInfo example - but somehow the %1$tH:%1$tM in the log-text does not get converted to time values?

I would prefer simply to get my calculated timestamp in TimeComfort changed into HH:mm in a string?

[martindk (Martin)]

Nailed it - through trial-and-error:

var Number tub_min_to_comfort = 148.12212    // This is just a test value. The real value will come from a formula when I know what I am doing ;-)
var Number tub_sec_to_comfort = tub_min_to_comfort.intValue() * 60

var SimpleDateFormat df1 = new SimpleDateFormat( "HH:mm" )
var String TimeNow = df1.format( new Date() )

var String TimeComfortString = (String::format("%02d:%02d", now.plusSeconds(tub_sec_to_comfort).getHourOfDay(), now.plusSeconds(tub_sec_to_comfort).getMinuteOfHour()))

logInfo("POOL", "Pool heating has been initiated at " + TimeNow + ". Comfort temp estimated reached at " + TimeComfortString)

Perhaps there are other ways of doing this - but it solves my need right now. Thanks for sparring with me and leading me in the right direction guys!