Populating a date value into an array

Authoring Twine
1

Twine Version: 2.3.9
Story Format: 2.33.2

I’ve got three NPCs (mom, dad, sibling) and each has an array I was using to track their details. Except for the schedule dates everything is working nicely.

What I need to do is to push a date into the schedule start/end values. The string has a padded date, as well as a fixed start/end time. Each has about 8-12 locations depending on if it’s a weekday, weekend, or holiday.

A snippet of the sibling array is below (shortened the schedule to keep it small). This is initialized as part of the StoryInit and are completed in the first few passages.

<<set $sibling to {
	name: '',
	gender: '',
	age: 20,
	relationship: 0,
	schedule: {
		weekday: {
			gym: {
				start: '07:30 AM',
				end: '09:00 AM'
			}
		}
}>>

While the above works, the main problem is that the times are strings. Which means I have to convert the in-game time into a string to compare them. I’d like to have an proper datestamp to just do a straight .getTime() comparison. I’ve got it working for other simpler components, but having issues here. As I don’t care about the date, I’ve padded it with ‘January 1, 2000’. The times are fixed and should be the same across any playthrough.

I have tried:

<<set $sibling to {
	schedule: {
		weekday: {
			gym: {
				start: 'new Date('January 1, 2000, 07:30 AM')',
				end:  'new Date('January 1, 2000, 09:00 AM')'
			}
         }
    }
}>>

I knew this one would fail due to the nested single quotes. It threw up all sorts of red errors. So I tried:

<<set $sibling to {
	schedule: {
		weekday: {
			gym: {
				start: "new Date('January 1, 2000, 07:30 AM')",
				end: "new Date('January 1, 2000, 09:00 AM')"
			}
         }
    }
}>>

and

<<set $sibling to {
	schedule: {
		weekday: {
			gym: {
				start: (new Date('January 1, 2000, 07:30 AM'))",
				end: (new Date('January 1, 2000, 09:00 AM'))"
			}
         }
    }
}>>

Both just inserted the literal value including the “newDate” part.

It has to be something simple/stupid I’ve missed… This may also be severe overkill, if so feel free to say so and I can look at other options. :slight_smile:

Aside from the simple calendar in the house, I will also be using this when the player visits locations the three NPCs can travel to as well… about 5-6 locations. I don’t suspect there will be more than 3, the rest will be random chances of running into other NPCs.

Thanks in advance!

2

According to MDN the proper way to use the “Date() constructor” is

new Date(year, monthIndex [, day [, hours [, minutes [, seconds [, milliseconds]]]]])

Passing time as a string is discouraged.

hours is 0 - 23

So I believe what you want is:

<<set $sibling to {
	schedule: {
		weekday: {
			gym: {
				start: new Date(2000, 0, 1, 7, 30),
				end:  new Date(2000, 0, 1, 9)
			}
         }
    }
}>>

2000, 0, 1 being January 1, 2000

I hope this works out for you.

3

That was exactly it. I was only looking at the Date Object on MDN, not the Constructor page.

Thanks!