Create DateTime block

Purpose

To convert a textrepresntation af a DateTime to an actual DateTime object.

A DateTime object, can be manipulated with operations like "Add 4 hours" or "change timezone" unlike a textrepresentation. This also allows correct comparisons, when used in conjunction with the 'Conditional' block

Input

• Execute
  Executes when a truthy value is set.

• Input
  A text representation of a given DateTime. Is forgotten when output has been provided. If nothing is provided, the default value is now.

• Input Format (Mandatory)
  The expected format provided to the input. Configure by setting tokens in the same format, as expected e.g. "mai 25 1982" -> "LLLL dd yyyy". Check the characters in the table below )

• Timezone
  Converts any offset from the input to the desired timezone e.g. 'America/New_York', 'Europe/Amsterdam' or 'UTC'

Output

• Value
  The DateTime object after conversion.

Example

My database holds the time and date for my booking confirmations in the 'UTC' timezone. I would like to convert it to 'America/New_York'.

graph LR
A(["2023-08-15T13:35:00.000+1"]) --Execute--> D(Create DateTime)
A --Input--> D
B(["YYYY-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ"]) --Input Format--> D
C(["America/New_York"]) --Timezone--> D
D --Value--> E(y)

Caveats

• Use ' to escape tokens. Often needed to interpret the 'T' as shown in the example.
• Be aware of the difference between 'timezone' and 'time offset'.

Table of tokens

(Examples below given for 2014-08-06T13:07:04.054 considered as a local time in America/New_York).