How to get the timestamp for use in an expression item

Ignition
1

Hello,

I’m trying to setup a standard transaction group to run every hour, but I need it to run every exact hour (0 minutes, and 0 seconds)so I’m using the Schedule option like this: 00:00,1:00,…,23:00

There is one field (named Status) in my database that I want to fill with a ‘1’ only at certain hours, say 5:00 and 8:00, but I want to store a ‘0’ for all other hours

I was thinking about using an expression item to get the hour from the timestamp like this:

Expression:
dateExtract(TransactionTimeStamp(),“hour”)=5
|| dateExtract(TransactionTimeStamp(),“hour”)=8

But I don’t know how to get the timestamp of the transaction.
I guess the “now()” function could help, but I think it is not exactly the same as the timestamp

Is there a way to do this?

2

The now() function in a Triggered Expression item will return the current time for when the expression ran (ie: when the group is triggered). Did you want a different timestamp than that?

3

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your reply
No, I dont need another time stamp, then “Now()” is just what I need.

I thought that Now() returned the timestamp of the moment of evaluation of the function “now” itself.
But if it returns the timestamp of the trigger is just exactly what I need.

Thank you very much.