Values are produced by some elements (e.g. ranges) for use in the substitution patterns of other elements. During substitution, values can be modified and combined with a set of pre-defined operators. Most of the time, values and operators should "just work". Sometimes it is necessary to look at the types of values to understand what's happening. In particular, which operators can be used depends on the value's types. Parentheses ( and ) can be used to clarify the order of evaluation of the operations. 

{EXPRESSION} or {EXPRESSION:FORMAT}

Values have attributes that may contain additional information and which can be accessed with the .-operator: 

VALUE.ATTRIBUTE

The available attributes depend on the value type. Type-specific values are always made up of only uppercase letters. Some value-producing elements may attach additional attributes to values (e.g. select).

Attributes, and operators (split into single- and two-argument operators) for all types are listed below. Note that some elements attach additional attributes to their values.

Text

Strings of text.

Attributes

  • TEXT Text
    Defined for compatibility with other value types.

Operators

Binary Operators

  • + (Text, Text) → Text
    Concatenation.
  • § (Number, Text) → Text
    Left slice.
  • § (Text, Number) → Text
    Right slice.

Formatting

A subset of Python's format specification mini-language is implemented for Text values: [[fill]align][sign][0][width].

Number

Only integer numbers are currently supported. Number literals (constant values not associated with an element, e.g. 5, 23) can be used in operations.

Attributes

  • TEXT Text
    The text from which the value was parsed or a text representation of the value if it was created directly.

Operators

Unary Operators

  • + (Number) → Number
  • - (Number) → Number

Binary Operators

  • * (Number, Number) → Number (commutative)
    Multiplication.
  • / (Number, Number) → Number
    Division.
  • % (Number, Number) → Number
    Modulo.
  • + (Number, Number) → Number (commutative)
    Addition.
  • - (Number, Number) → Number
    Subtraction.

Formatting

A subset of Python's format specification mini-language is implemented for Number values: [[fill]align][0][width].

Date

UTC dates.

Attributes

  • TEXT Text
    The text from which the value was parsed or a text representation of the value if it was created directly.
  • YEAR Number
  • MONTH Number
  • DAY Number
  • HOUR Number
  • MINUTE Number
  • SECOND Number

Operators

Binary Operators

  • + (Date, DateDelta) → Date (commutative)
  • - (Date, DateDelta) → Date
  • - (Date, Date) → DateDelta

Formatting

Date values support a subset of the strftime format codes used by Python's datetime module:

  • %d: Day of the month (zero-padded).
  • %m: Month (zero-padded).
  • %y: Year without century (zero-padded)
  • %Y: Year with century (zero-padded)
  • %H: Hour (24-hour clock, zero-padded)
  • %M: Minute (zero-padded)
  • %S: Second (zero-padded)
  • %%: A literal percent character.

If no specification is given, Date values default to %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.

DateDelta

Time intervals or the difference between two Dates. DateDelta literals (constant values not associated with an element, e.g. 5s, 23m, 12h, 4d) can be used in operations.

Attributes

  • TEXT Text
    The text from which the value was parsed or a text representation of the value if it was created directly.
  • SIGN Number
    Contains +1 if the value is positive, else -1.
  • DAYS Number
    Number of full days contained in the interval.
  • HOURS Number
    Number of full hours contained in the interval after removal of all full days.
  • MINUTES Number
    Number of full minutes contained in the interval after removal of all full hours.
  • SECONDS Number
    Number of seconds remaining in the interval after removal of all full minutes.
  • TOTAL_SECONDS Number
    The total number of seconds contained in the interval.

Operators

Unary Operators

  • + (DateDelta) → DateDelta
  • - (DateDelta) → DateDelta

Binary Operators

  • * (DateDelta, Number) → DateDelta (commutative)
  • / (DateDelta, Number) → DateDelta
  • / (DateDelta, DateDelta) → Number
  • + (DateDelta, DateDelta) → DateDelta (commutative)
  • - (DateDelta, DateDelta) → DateDelta

Formatting

DateDelta does not provide formatting options at the moment. By default values are formatted as +Dd HH:MM:SS. Use attributes to assemble a custom format.