libsbml.Date Class Reference

Detailed Description

Representation of MIRIAM-compliant dates used in ModelHistory.

This class of objects is defined by libSBML only and has no direct equivalent in terms of SBML components. This class is not prescribed by the SBML specifications, although it is used to implement features defined in SBML.

A Date object stores a reasonably complete representation of date and time. Its purpose is to serve as a way to store dates to be read and written in the W3C date format used in RDF Dublin Core annotations within SBML. The W3C date format is a restricted form of ISO 8601, the international standard for the representation of dates and times. A time and date value in this W3C format takes the form YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssXHH:ZZ (e.g., 1997-07-16T19:20:30+01:00) where XHH:ZZ is the time zone offset. The libSBML Date object contains the following fields to represent these values:

year: a long integer representing the year. This should be a four-digit number such as 2011.
month: a long integer representing the month, with a range of values of 1–12. The value 1 represents January, and so on.
day: a long integer representing the day of the month, with a range of values of 1–31.
hour: a long integer representing the hour on a 24-hour clock, with a range of values of 0–23.
minute: a long integer representing the minute, with a range of 0–59.
second: a long integer representing the second, with a range of 0–59.
sign: a long integer representing the sign of the offset (0 signifying + and 1 signifying -). See the paragraph below for further explanations.
hours offset: a long integer representing the time zone's hour offset from GMT.
minute offset: a long integer representing the time zone's minute offset from GMT.

To illustrate the time zone offset, a value of -05:00 would correspond to USA Eastern Standard Time. In the Date object, this would require a value of 1 for the sign field, 5 for the hour offset and 0 for the minutes offset.

In the restricted RDF annotations used in SBML, described in Section 6 of the SBML Level 2 and Level 3 specification documents, date/time stamps can be used to indicate the time of creation and modification of a model. The following SBML model fragment illustrates this:

 <model metaid='_180340' id='GMO' name='Goldbeter1991_MinMitOscil'>
     <annotation>
         <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf='http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#'
                  xmlns:dc='http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/'
                  xmlns:dcterms='http://purl.org/dc/terms/'
                  xmlns:vCard='http://www.w3.org/2001/vcard-rdf/3.0#' >
             <rdf:Description rdf:about='#_180340'>
                 <dc:creator>
                     <rdf:Bag>
                         <rdf:li rdf:parseType='Resource'>
                             <vCard:N rdf:parseType='Resource'>
                                 <vCard:Family>Shapiro</vCard:Family>
                                 <vCard:Given>Bruce</vCard:Given>
                             </vCard:N>
                             <vCard:EMAIL>bshapiro@jpl.nasa.gov</vCard:EMAIL>
                             <vCard:ORG rdf:parseType='Resource'>
                                 <vCard:Orgname>NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory</vCard:Orgname>
                             </vCard:ORG>
                         </rdf:li>
                     </rdf:Bag>
                 </dc:creator>
                 <dcterms:created rdf:parseType='Resource'>
                     <dcterms:W3CDTF>2005-02-06T23:39:40+00:00</dcterms:W3CDTF>
                 </dcterms:created>
                 <dcterms:modified rdf:parseType='Resource'>
                     <dcterms:W3CDTF>2005-09-13T13:24:56+00:00</dcterms:W3CDTF>
                 </dcterms:modified>
             </rdf:Description>
         </rdf:RDF>
     </annotation>
 </model>

Public Member Functions
def	clone
def	getDateAsString
def	getDay
def	getHour
def	getHoursOffset
def	getMinute
def	getMinutesOffset
def	getMonth
def	getSecond
def	getSignOffset
def	getYear
def	representsValidDate
def	setDateAsString
def	setDay
def	setHour
def	setHoursOffset
def	setMinute
def	setMinutesOffset
def	setMonth
def	setSecond
def	setSignOffset
def	setYear

Member Function Documentation

def libsbml.Date.clone ( self )

Python method signature(s):

clone()    Date

Returns a copy of this Date.

Returns:: a (deep) copy of this Date.

def libsbml.Date.getDateAsString ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getDateAsString()    string

Returns the current Date value in text-string form.

The string returned will be in the W3C date format with time zone offset, used in RDF Dublin Core annotations within SBML. This format expresses a date and time value as a string of the form YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssXHH:ZZ, where

YYYY is a four-digit integer representing the year. This should be a four-digit number such as 2011.
MM is a two-digit integer representing the month, with a range of values of 01–12. The value 1 represents January, and so on.
DD is a two-digit integer representing the day of the month, with a range of values of 01–31.
hh is a two-digit integer representing the hour on a 24-hour clock, with a range of values of 00–23.
mm is a two-digit integer representing the minute, with a range of 00–59.
ss is a two-digit integer representing the second, with a range of 0–59.
X is the the sign of the time zone offset, either + or -.
HH is a two-digit integer representing the hour of the time zone offset, with a range of 00–23.
ZZ is a two-digit integer representing the minutes of the time zone offset, with a range of 00–59.

An example date/time string is 1997-07-16T19:20:30+01:00, which represents July 16, 1997, at 19:20:30 in Central European Time (which is UTC +1:00).

Returns:: the date as a string.

def libsbml.Date.getDay ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getDay()    long

Returns the day from this Date.

Returns:: the day from this Date.

def libsbml.Date.getHour ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getHour()    long

Returns the hour from this Date.

Returns:: the hour from this Date.

def libsbml.Date.getHoursOffset ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getHoursOffset()    long

Returns the hours of the time zone offset from this Date.

Returns:: the hours of the offset from this Date.

def libsbml.Date.getMinute ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getMinute()    long

Returns the minute from this Date.

Returns:: the minute from this Date.

def libsbml.Date.getMinutesOffset ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getMinutesOffset()    long

Returns the minutes of the time zone offset from this Date.

Returns:: the minutes of the offset from this Date.

def libsbml.Date.getMonth ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getMonth()    long

Returns the month from this Date.

Returns:: the month from this Date.

def libsbml.Date.getSecond ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getSecond()    long

Returns the seconds from this Date.

Returns:: the seconds from this Date.

def libsbml.Date.getSignOffset ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getSignOffset()    long

Returns the sign of the time zone offset from this Date.

Returns:: the sign of the offset from this Date.

def libsbml.Date.getYear ( self )

Python method signature(s):

getYear()    long

Returns the year from this Date.

Returns:: the year from this Date.

def libsbml.Date.representsValidDate ( self )

Python method signature(s):

representsValidDate()    bool

Returns true or false depending on whether this date object represents a valid date and time value.

This method verifies that the date/time value stored in this object is well-formed and represents plausible values. A time and date value in the W3C format takes the form YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssXHH:ZZ (e.g., 1997-07-16T19:20:30+01:00) where XHH:ZZ is the time zone offset. This method checks such things as whether the value of the month number is less than or equal to 12, whether the value of the minutes number is less than or equal to 59, whether a time zone offset is set, etc.

Returns:: true if the date is valid, false otherwise.

def libsbml.Date.setDateAsString	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setDateAsString(string date)    int

Sets the value of this Date object using a date and time value expressed as a text string.

This method expects its argument to be in the W3C date format with time zone offset, used in RDF Dublin Core annotations within SBML. This format expresses a date and time value as a string of the form YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssXHH:ZZ, where

YYYY is a four-digit integer representing the year. This should be a four-digit number such as 2011.
MM is a two-digit integer representing the month, with a range of values of 01–12. The value 1 represents January, and so on.
DD is a two-digit integer representing the day of the month, with a range of values of 01–31.
hh is a two-digit integer representing the hour on a 24-hour clock, with a range of values of 00–23.
mm is a two-digit integer representing the minute, with a range of 00–59.
ss is a two-digit integer representing the second, with a range of 0–59.
X is the the sign of the time zone offset, either + or -.
HH is a two-digit integer representing the hour of the time zone offset, with a range of 00–23.
ZZ is a two-digit integer representing the minutes of the time zone offset, with a range of 00–59.

In the string format above, it is important not to forget the literal character T in the string. Here is an example date/time string: 1997-07-16T19:20:30+01:00, which would represent July 16, 1997, at 19:20:30 in Central European Time (which is UTC +1:00).

If this method is given a None argument or a string of length zero, it constructs a Date object with the value of January 1, 2000, at time 00:00 UTC. Otherwise, the argument must be in the complete format described above, or unpredictable results will happen.

Parameters:

date

a string representing the date.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

def libsbml.Date.setDay	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setDay(long day)    int

Sets the value of the day of this Date object.

Parameters:

day

a long integer representing the day; it must be in the range 0–31 or an error will be signaled.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

def libsbml.Date.setHour	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setHour(long hour)    int

Sets the value of the hour of this Date object.

Parameters:

hour

a long integer representing the hour to set; it must be in the range 0–23 or an error will be signaled.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

def libsbml.Date.setHoursOffset	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setHoursOffset(long hoursOffset)    int

Sets the value of this Date object's time zone hour offset.

Parameters:

hoursOffset

a long integer representing the hours of the offset; it must be in the range 0–23 or an error will be signaled.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

def libsbml.Date.setMinute	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setMinute(long minute)    int

Sets the value of the minute of this Date object.

Parameters:

minute

a long integer representing the minute to set; it must be in the range 0–59 or an error will be signaled.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

def libsbml.Date.setMinutesOffset	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setMinutesOffset(long minutesOffset)    int

Sets the value of this Date object's time zone minutes offset.

Parameters:

minutesOffset

a long integer representing the minutes of the offset; it must be in the range 0–59 or an error will be signaled.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

def libsbml.Date.setMonth	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setMonth(long month)    int

Sets the value of the month of this Date object.

Parameters:

month

a long integer representing the month; it must be in the range 1–12 or an error will be signaled.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

def libsbml.Date.setSecond	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setSecond(long second)    int

Sets the value of the second of the Date object.

Parameters:

second

a long integer representing the seconds; it must be in the range 0–59 or an error will be signaled.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

def libsbml.Date.setSignOffset	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setSignOffset(long sign)    int

Sets the value of the sign of the time zone offset of this Date object.

The only permissible values are 0 and 1.

Parameters:

sign a long integer representing the sign of the offset, with 0 signifying + and 1 signifying -.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

def libsbml.Date.setYear	(	self,
		args
	)

Python method signature(s):

setYear(long year)    int

Sets the value of the year of this Date object.

The value given as argument must be between 1000 and 9999 inclusive. (In the millennium during which this libSBML documentation is being written, a typical value is 2011, but we hope that SBML will continue to be used for a long time.)

Parameters:

year

a long integer representing the year.

Returns:

integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:

libsbml.Date Class Reference

Detailed Description

Public Member Functions

Member Function Documentation