Informix DataBlade API Programmer's Manual DataBlade API Function Descriptions

The mi_string_to_interval() function converts a text (string) representation of an interval value to its binary (internal) INTERVAL representation.

mi_interval *mi_string_to_interval(intvl_string, type_range)

mi_string *intvl_string;

mi_string *type_range;

intvl_string	is a pointer to the interval string to convert to its internal INTERVAL format.
type_range	is a pointer to a string that specifies the range of INTERVAL qualifiers in the interval string that intvl_string references.

Valid in Client LIBMI Application?	Valid in User-Defined Routine?
Yes	Yes

The mi_string_to_interval() function converts the interval string that intvl_string references to its the internal INTERVAL value. An internal INTERVAL value is the format that the database server uses to store a value in a INTERVAL column of the database.

The interval string that intvl_string references has the following fixed format:

"YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:SS.FFFFF"

 



YYYY

is the 4-digit year.


MM

is the 2-digit month.


DD

is the 2-digit day.


mm

is the 2-digit minute.


SS

is the 2-digit second.


FFFFF

is the fraction of a second, where the number if digits is specified by the date and/or time qualifier with a maximum precision of 5 digits.

However, this interval string can contain only a subset of this range. In this case, the type_range argument must specify the range of qualifiers that the interval string contains. This qualifier range begins with the keyword interval and is followed by the range of qualifiers for the interval in the intvl_string. For example, the following call to mi_string_to_interval() converts the interval of 6 days, 5 hours, and 45 minutes to its internal INTERVAL format:

internal_intvl = mi_string_to_interval(
					"06 5:45",
					"interval day to minute");

If the type_range argument is a NULL-valued pointer, the mi_string_to_interval() function assumes a default qualifier range of:

"interval year to second"

The mi_string_to_interval() function does not accept the interval string in the date and time formats of the current processing locale.

See the descriptions of the following functions: mi_interval_to_string(), mi_string_to_date(), mi_string_to_decimal(), mi_string_to_datetime(), and mi_string_to_money().

For more information on how to convert interval strings to internal INTERVAL format, see Converting Date or Time Between Text and Binary.