topic Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions in Developers Questions

Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

Anonymous User — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 19:39:35 GMT

Hi all,

Could anyone assist me in converting the following String type field

Mon Sep 17 13:11:06 +0000 2018

into a Date type field?

Thanks,

Gee

Jennifer Bell‌

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

DanPatterson_Retired — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 23:20:07 GMT

Did you try some of the options for Arcade listed here?

Date Functions | ArcGIS for Developers

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

XanderBakker — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 22:49:57 GMT

I think you can try something like this:

function Convert2DateTime(date_text){
    var months = {"Jan": 0, "Feb": 1, "Mar": 2,
                  "Apr": 3, "May": 4, "Jun": 5,
                  "Jul": 6, "Aug": 7, "Sep": 8,
                  "Oct": 9, "Nov": 10, "Dec": 11};

    var date_list = Split(date_text, " ");
    var day_val = Number(date_list[2]);
    var month_val = months[date_list[1]];
    var year_val = Number(date_list[5]);
    var time_text = date_list[3];
    var time_list = Split(time_text, ":");
    var hour_val = Number(time_list[0]);
    var min_val = Number(time_list[1]);
    var sec_val = Number(time_list[2]);
    return Date(year_val, month_val, day_val, hour_val, min_val, sec_val);
}

// var datetext = $feature.Date;
var date_text = "Mon Sep 17 13:11:06 +0000 2018";
return Convert2DateTime(date_text);
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I tested with the value "Mon Sep 17 13:11:06 +0000 2018" (see line 20). You should however, point to a attribute field like the example commented on line 19. It will assume the time is expressed in your local time zone:

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

DanPatterson_Retired — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 20:49:51 GMT

Xander Bakker‌ Xander, even though Arcade is cross-platform, what part of the platform chain necessitates having to declare your variables. what is it based on and why?

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

Anonymous User — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 22:50:00 GMT

Thanks Xander Bakker‌ and Dan Patterson‌ for the helpful information.

I managed to get this working with the following script (just forgot to post it online).

// Date Format
// Fri Jun 29 08:18:42 +0000 2018

// Year
var yearNum = Right($feature.Date,4);

// Month
var monthText = Mid($feature.Date,4,3);
var monthNum = When(monthText=='Jan',0, monthText=='Feb',1, monthText=='Mar',2, monthText=='Apr',3, monthText=='May',4, monthText=='Jun',5, monthText=='Jul',6, monthText=='Aug',7, monthText=='Sep',8, monthText=='Oct',9, monthText=='Nov',10,11);

// Day
var dayNum = Mid($feature.Date,8,2);

// Time
var timeNum = Right($feature.Date,19);

// Hour
var hourNum = Left(timeNum,2);

// Minute
var minuteNum = Mid(timeNum,3,2);

// Second
var secondNum = Mid(timeNum,6,2);

return Date(yearNum,monthNum,dayNum,hourNum,minuteNum,secondNum);‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

Anonymous User — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 22:50:03 GMT

But, at the end I just updated the python script that was ingesting data into the ArcGIS online feature layer.

Thanks again for the help.

Cheers,

Gee

from datetime import datetime

s = "Fri Jun 29 08:18:42 +0000 2018"
d = datetime.strptime(s, '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %z %Y')
print(d)‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

DanPatterson_Retired — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 21:44:59 GMT

nice and simple as it should be

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

XanderBakker — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:51:17 GMT

Hi Dan Patterson , Arcade is based on JavaScript and hence the declarations. It is an abstract of JavaScript and therefore the possibilities are limited (compared to JavaScript). It does have geometry functions which are quite cool. The reason for Arcade is that is it more "webby" than Python and closer to what is used to develop for instance ArcGIS Online. Therefor, it is easier to enable in web maps than Python.

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

XanderBakker — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:53:36 GMT

Cool! Great that you solved it by yourself. It is always good to post back the solution, because this way others can benefit from what you have found out.

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

XanderBakker — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:56:21 GMT

I totally agree! When I searched for an answer I was looking from something similar to strptime in Python and surprised that there is no such thing in Arcade. Always better to go directly to the source and change it there. In this case I totally agree with Dan_Patterson it is nice and simple.

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

AndrewL — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 20:03:44 GMT

Thanks this worked for me as well. Is there a way to tell it that this is UTC time, and that it should adjust to whatever time zone the user is in when displaying?

For example, my expression converts text (2019-03-19 20:00:00, UTC) to
Tue Mar 19 2019 20:00:00 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)
even though it doesn't convert it to CDT.

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

AndrewL — Fri, 22 Mar 2019 14:02:09 GMT

There is a "ToLocal" function within Arcade expressions that I was able to use.

Re: Text to Date using Arcade Expressions

deleted-user-8TJ6jZDO1Rfr — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 20:54:54 GMT

I worked through this issue today and was able to use both the codes in this thread to make my situation work. I had a date in a string format that had inconsistent amount of characters e.g. 1/2/2016; 6/22/2017; 12/12/2018. Using a split array and a dictionary worked well. Thanks Xander Bakker and Geethaka Fernando

My code:

var date_text = $feature["START_DATE"]
function Convert2Date(date_text){
// Month List
var months = {"1": 0, "2": 1, "3": 2, "4": 3, "5": 4, "6": 5, "7": 6, "8": 7, "9": 8, "10": 9, "11": 10, "12": 11};

// Date List
var date_list = Split(date_text, '/')

// Year
var yearNum = Number(date_list[2]);

// Month
var monthNum = months[date_list[0]];
// Day
var dayNum = Number(date_list[1]);
return Date(yearNum,monthNum,dayNum);
}
return Convert2date(date_text);