Re: Convert Number Hours to duration

Grant_Stead · 04-14-2020 09:13 PM

I have a decimal column [hours], anywhere from 0 hrs to 5 million hrs and I want to return a datetime, taking NOW() - [hours]

[hours] is currently decimal type with two digits… 1.73 hours…

Help, my brain is fried!

Marc_Dillon

NOW() - ([hours] / 24)

No this is wrong…

Grant_Stead

But it feels so right!

Marc_Dillon

I hate date and time math…

Grant_Stead

Same

Marc_Dillon

Make an intermediate VC, Duration type. Build the Duration string manually from the decimal value

“00” & floor([hours]) & “:” & ([hours] - (floor([hours])) * 100) & “:00”

Then do NOW() - [intermediate vc]

??

Thus my suggestion of a DURATION() expression in:

MultiTech

That would work, yes; but what I’m trying to do is get away from having to create specific temporary variable holding columns… ones that are only used in a very specific situation.

I’d like to get rid of those and instead cascade all of those into a single field that I can then pull the data out and force it into a specific type. There is only ever one temporary variable present at a time, it’s just that they are of different types and in order to work with them certain concessions must be made.

if I have a single temporary variable, but that temporary variable could take the form of a number, a price, a decimal, a duration; in order for me to work with any of these, they each used to require their own individual column type - but since we can convert things to a specific type, I can throw them all inside a single text column and then format that data whenever I use it using a type forcing formula.

Grant_Stead

Well, that was harder than it needed to be… here is where I ended up
NOW()-
((TIME(
CONCATENATE(
MOD(FLOOR([target_drtn_hr_cnt]), 24),
“:”,
(MOD(((60 * 60) * [target_drtn_hr_cnt]), (60 * 60)) / 60),
“:”,
MOD(((60 * 60) * [target_drtn_hr_cnt]), 60)
)
)
- “00:00:00”
) + (FLOOR([target_drtn_hr_cnt] / 24) * 24))

It’s in this help article: DOH

Marc_Dillon

Oohhh, TIME() !!
I guess that’s my DURATION() expression I was asking for?

Stefan_QREW

That’s what one would call, “the long way around the barn”

a beefy expression if I ever saw one

Grant_Stead

Open to ideas lol

Stefan_QREW

Honestly, I think that’s the best one can do given the tools available… Times/dates are literally the worst.

One could say Time has always been the enemy

Grant_Stead

Yeah, it really is painful…

Steve

You’re welcome.

Grant_Stead

I love seeing how you’ve gotten in and are helping create value…
It would be really cool if there was an arena on help.appsheet.com that had just a ton of examples…
It’s always interesting to see the problems people have, and how they solve them.

Steve

A good idea, but the curation effort to keep it concise would be substantial.

Grant_Stead

Unless the help can be meta tagged… Then yes…

Austin

Is this formula honestly the best/only method to make durations out of numbers in hrs

Grant_Stead

As far as I know… LOL
The best way that i’ve thought to correct this is to allow a Unit Of Measure to be applied to number/decimal… (That would also let you see it as a label in certain places of the app…) or an expression with arguments for hours, minutes, seconds, days, weeks, months, years, etc… like DURATION([column_name], “Hours”)

Austin

If I don’t have decimal is there a better way? If it’s only whole number hrs?

Grant_Stead

I’m not 100% but I think you can just *1.0 and it’ll force it to decimal for calcs…

MultiTech

Affirmative

Grant_Stead

Thanks @MultiTech_Visions you’re one of my favorite Appsheeple… Come on, that’s pretty good slang…

MultiTech

Austin

I mean can I avoid the *60 portions because I will never have part of a number. Numbers auto convert to decimal when doing math I believe.

MultiTech

If you’re never going to have a decimal portion of the hours, and you literally just need to “inject” the hours into the duration, you could do it this way:

NOW() - concatenate(left(“000” & [Hours], 3), “:00:00”)

I’m thinking that would work (but I haven’t tested that)