CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonsearchtimestamp
Jason Theis
Jason Theis

Reputation: 11

Python search of string timestamps to return a data value

I'm fairly new to programming and have a puzzler on my hands. Using Python code I'm trying to search a text file that has a timestamp that is a string along with another data value. I'm trying to give my search a limit of + or - 3 minutes so that the timestamp that is being searched for will use the closest timestamp in the text file and return the data value associated with the timestamp.
Here is an example of the text file that is being searched:

2014/05/01 00:00 -0.075                           
2014/05/01 00:06 -0.056                                             
2014/05/01 00:12 -0.037           
2014/05/01 00:18 -0.017         
2014/05/01 00:24 0.002        
2014/05/01 00:30 0.021    
2014/05/01 00:36 0.040           
2014/05/01 00:42 0.061       
2014/05/01 00:48 0.081        
2014/05/01 00:54 0.102        
2014/05/01 01:00 0.124         
2014/05/01 01:06 0.146          
2014/05/01 01:12 0.168

The bit of code that I have written thus far is:

with open(TEXTFILE,'r') as searchfile:
         for line in searchfile:
                x = line.split(' ',2)
                if DateVariable == x[0]:
                        if TimeVariable == x[1]:
                                print x[2]
                                break
                else:
                        print 'No timestamp match was found.'

This bit of code works but for only when searching for a timestamp that is an exact match to the user input. I'm not sure how to tackle a + or - 3 minute limit search. Thank you in advance!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 455

Answers (1)

twalberg
twalberg

Reputation: 62369

You could try something like this, assuming that your TimeVariable is also in the same format, which seems a reasonable assumption:

TimeFields = TimeVariable.split(':')
TimeInMinutes = int(TimeFields[0]) * 60 + int(TimeFields[1])

with open(TEXTFILE,'r') as searchfile:
         for line in searchfile:
                x = line.split(' ',2)
                if DateVariable == x[0]:
                        TestFields = x[1].split(':')
                        EntryTime = int(TestFields[0]) * 60 + int(TestFields[1])

                        TimeDelta = EntryTime - TimeInMinutes

                        if -3 <= TimeDelta <= 3:
                                print x[2]
                                break
                else:
                        print 'No timestamp match was found.'

There's a little extra logic you'll need to add for the 6 minutes around midnight (or around noon, for that matter, if those are 12-hour times), but that shouldn't be too hard to add in...

Upvotes: 1

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