[chaley]

Originally Posted by chaley

However, I think a good solution is to add the 'timestamp' format to format_date, returning a floating point timestamp. I would also change format_date() to allow a timestamp as the first argument (the "date") permitting conversion of timestamps to date strings. This would do what you need and also facilitate arithmetic on dates. Example:

program:
	t = format_date($last_modified, 'timestamp');
	strcat(t, ' -- ', format_date(t, 'yyyy MMM ddd hh:MM:ss'))

Result: 1616695611.0 -- 2021 Mar Thu 18:03:51

That idea didn't work out. There were too many ambiguities. Instead I added the date format strings:

• to_number : convert the date & time into a floating point number (a timestamp)
• from_number : convert a floating point number (a timestamp) into an iso formatted date. If you want a different date format then add the desired formatting string after from_number and a colon ( : ). Example: from_number:MMM dd yyyy

I used '_number' instead of '_timestamp' because I thought that 'number' better describes what it is.

Example:

program:
	t = format_date(today(), 'to_number');
	format_date(t, 'from_number:MMM dd yyyy')

Result: Mar 25 2021

I submitted the changes to Kovid to see what he thinks.