Time

The Time class represents the time value and its operations. Time.now returns the current time object. The timestamps of the files returned by File#stat are instances of this class.

SuperClass:

Object

Included Modules:

Comparable

Class Methods:

now

now

Returns the current time object.

at(time)

Creates the time object at time. The argument time must be either the instance of the Time class or the number, which is considered as seconds since 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.

gm(year, month, day, hour, min, sec)

Returns the Time object specified by the arguments in GMT. The arguments after the second one can be omitted. The default value for the omitted argument is the lowest value for that argument.

If the month argument is a fixnum, it must be from 1(January) to 12(December). If it is string, it must be the English month name or the number starting from 1(January) to 12(December).

If the number of arguments are equals to that of elements of Time#to_a, Time.gm understands them properly, even if they are in the little endian (seconds comes first) format.

local(year, month, day, hour, min, sec)

mktime(year, month, day, hour, min, sec)

Returns the Time object specified by the arguments in localtime. The arguments after the second one can be omitted. The default value for the omitted argument is the lowest value for that argument.

times

Returns the user and system CPU times structure, which attributes are:

utime		# user time
stime		# system time
cutime		# user time of children
cstime		# system time of children

Times are floating-point numbers and are measured in seconds. (See times(3))

Methods:

self + other

Returns the time object which is later than self by other.

self - other

Returns the diff of the time in float, if the other if the time object. If the other is the numeric value, it returns the time object earlier than self than other.

self <=> other

Comparison of the times. other must be a time object or an integer or a floating-point number. Numbers are considered as seconds since 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.

asctime

ctime

to_s

Converts the time into the string form like ctime(3).

gmtime

Sets timezone of the time object to GMT. The time object operates time in GMT thereafter. To print time in GMT:

print Time.now.gmtime, "\n"

gmtime returns self.

localtime

Sets timezone of the time object to localtime, which is default. Returns time object itself.

to_i

tv_sec

Returns the time since the epoch, 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970, measured in seconds.

sec

min

hour

mday

day

mon

month

year

wday

yday

zone

isdst

Returns the internal values of the time object. All methods return an integer value, except zone, which returns the timezone name string. (c.f. localtime(3))

Notice: Unlike tm struct, month returns 1 for January, year returns 1998 for year 1998, and yday start with 1 (not 0).

strftime(format)

Returns formatted string from the time object. Format specifiers are as follows:

%A

full weekday name(Sunday, Monday...)

%a

abbreviated weekday name(Sun, Mon...)

%B

full month name(January, February...)

%b

abbreviated month name(Jan, Feb...)

%c

date and time representation

%d

day of the month in decimal(01-31)

%H

hour using a 24-hour clock(00-23)

%I

hour using a 12-hour clock(01-12)

%j

day of the year(001-366)

%M

minutes(00-59)

%m

month in decimal(01-12)

%p

Either AM or PM

%S

second in decimal(00-61)

%U

week number, first Sunday as the first day of the first week(00-53)

%W

week number, first Monday as the first day of the first week(00-53)

%w

day of the week in number. Sunday being 0(0-6)

%X

time representation without date

%x

date representation without time

%Y

year

%y

year without century(00-99)

%Z

timezone

%%

%itself

to_a

Converts tm struct into an array, whose elements are in order of:

• sec
• min
• hour
• mday
• mon
• year
• wday
• yday
• isdst
• zone

to_f

Converts the time (in seconds from the epoch) into a floating-point number.

usec

tv_usec

Returns micro second part of the time object.

matz@netlab.co.jp