tm_timecmp Function

The tm_timecmp function compares two timestamps and returns a value that indicates whether one timestamp occurs before, at the same time, or after the other.

tm_timecmp(timestamp_a, timestamp_b)

Condition	Return Value
timestamp_a is before timestamp_b	-1
timestamp_a is the same instant as timestamp_b	0
timestamp_a is after timestamp_b	1

When comparing the timestamps, tm_timecmp takes into account the UTC offsets given in each timestamp. For example, 06:00:00+0200 and 04:00:00Z are the same instant after taking into account the +0200 offset on the first timestamp.

In Terramate, timestamps are represented as strings following the RFC 3339 date and time format. The tm_timecmp function requires both of its arguments to be strings that adhere to this format.

Examples

tm_timecmp("2017-11-22T00:00:00Z", "2017-11-22T00:00:00Z")
0

tm_timecmp("2017-11-22T00:00:00Z", "2017-11-22T01:00:00Z")
-1

tm_timecmp("2017-11-22T01:00:00Z", "2017-11-22T00:00:00Z")
1

tm_timecmp("2017-11-22T01:00:00Z", "2017-11-22T00:00:00-01:00")
0

Related Functions

• tm_formatdate converts the resulting timestamp to other date and time formats.
• tm_timeadd adds a duration to a timestamp, returning a new timestamp.
• tm_timestamp returns a string representation of the current date and time.