Variable Date  

The Variable Date task allows you to monitor a date variable.  It has the following advantages over the regular Variable Monitor task:
1) It can parse any variable Timestamp by allowing the user to specify the timestamp format.
2) It can output the parsed timestamp into a new variable using a user specified output timestamp format.

Variable name
Select the variable you need to monitor from the list.  For some variables like DATE, you need to manually enter the format.

Variable format
Enter the format that the date is expected to be in. 
1) Enter MILLIS   if the variable you need to monitor is a timestamp in Milliseconds, which was introduced in version 11.
2) Specify format to match the variable Timestamp using the DATES format shown below:
Example:  yyyy-MM-dd  HH:mm:ss  if the Date variable is:  2015-02-15  11:45:01

Variable value
examples:
For '5 days' use: 5 d
For '3 hours' use: 3 h
For '30 minutes' use: 30 m

Comparison criteria
Options are Older than or Newer than

Output format
The task can also be used to convert a date to a different format.  Use the DATES format to specify your output format.
Example: yyyy-MM-dd  HH:mm:ss

Task To Run
Select the desired task to run, if any of the selected criteria are met.  If you want to use this task in a chain for conditional processing, select 'None'.  You can also select multiple tasks to run in sequence or to run simultaneously. To run tasks in sequence, use taskTitle1|taskTitle2|taskTitle3. To run tasks simultaneously, use taskTitle1&taskTitle2&taskTitle3.

There are 4 types of variables listed:
Task Variables: Task variables values are generated/updated when the tasks run.  Example: Tasks exit codes are stored as the following variable: TaskTitle::ExitCode
System Variables:  Program system variables which are resolved when the current task runs, examples are DATE, USERNAME etc..
Java Variables:  Java variables, which are available to the Java Virtual Machine.  You can get the value of java variables from the Utilities menu / Java Variables
User Variables:  Users can add their own variables via batch files, scripts or programs.  Users can link output from their own programs to this program.
 

 

DATES format:
Date and time formats are specified by date and time pattern strings. Within date and time pattern strings, unquoted letters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are interpreted as pattern letters representing the components of a date or time string. Text can be quoted using single quotes (') to avoid interpretation. "''" represents a single quote. All other characters are not interpreted; they're simply copied into the output string during formatting or matched against the input string during parsing.

The following pattern letters are defined (all other characters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are reserved):

Letter Date or Time Component Presentation Examples
G Era designator Text AD
y Year Year 1996; 96
M Month in year Month July; Jul; 07
w Week in year Number 27
W Week in month Number 2
D Day in year Number 189
d Day in month Number 10
F Day of week in month Number 2
E Day in week Text Tuesday; Tue
a Am/pm marker Text PM
H Hour in day (0-23) Number 0
k Hour in day (1-24) Number 24
K Hour in am/pm (0-11) Number 0
h Hour in am/pm (1-12) Number 12
m Minute in hour Number 30
s Second in minute Number 55
S Millisecond Number 978
z Time zone General time zone Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00
Z Time zone RFC 822 time zone -0800
Pattern letters are usually repeated, as their number determines the exact presentation:

Examples

The following examples show how date and time patterns are interpreted in the U.S. locale. The given date and time are 2013-07-04 12:08:56 local time in the U.S. Pacific Time time zone.
Date and Time Pattern Result
yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z 2013.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT
EEE, MMM d, ''yy Wed, Jul 4, '01
h:mm a 12:08 PM
hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz 12 o'clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time
K:mm a, z 0:08 PM, PDT
yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa 02013.July.04 AD 12:08 PM
EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700
yyMMddHHmmssZ 010704120856-0700
yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ 2013-07-04T12:08:56.235-0700