format-time-column

Description

format-time-column adaptor formats date/time values in a datatable column.

Define the format of a date/time column and either replace the original column values or add a new column with the reformatted date-time.

Inputs

data Type: datatable Required: Yes The datatable containing the column to be formatted.

original column Type: text Required: Yes The name of the column containing the date/time values.

original unit Type: text Required: No The unit of time measurement of the original values. If unspecified, defaults to milliseconds.

new unit Type: text Required: No The unit of time measurement of the new values. If unspecified, defaults to minutes.

new column Type: text Required: No The name of the column to which the new values will be added. If unspecified, the new values will added to the original column (specified by original column), overwriting the original values.

Outputs

data Type: datatable A datatable with formatted values.

Examples

Example 1: Default behaviour.

Inputs:

data:

id	time
1	1
2	4
3	5
4	2

original column: time

original unit: hours

new unit: minutes

new column : null (empty)

Outputs:

data:

id	time
1	60
2	240
3	300
4	120

-> Overwrote the data in the time column with the time in minutesinstead of hours

Example 2: Time reformatted in new column.

Inputs:

data:

id	time (hours)
1	1
2	4
3	5
4	2

original column: time (hours)

original unit: hours

new unit: seconds

new column : time (seconds)

Outputs:

data:

id	time (hours)	time (seconds)
1	1	3600
2	4	14400
3	5	18000
4	2	7200

-> Created a time (seconds) column with the time in seconds, derived from time (hours) column.

Use Cases

• Standardize temporal data elements across different data sources where temportal data are stored in different formats

• Simplify temporal data formats

• Reformat temporal data elements to a format more useful for visualisation