:mega: Please welcome our first step to the standa...

# stdlib

[ilya.gorbunov]

📣 Please welcome our first step to the standard way of working with time in Kotlin:
Duration and time interval measurement API https://github.com/Kotlin/KEEP/blob/durations/proposals/stdlib/durations-and-clocks.md
The proposal can be discussed in this issue: https://github.com/Kotlin/KEEP/issues/190

[jw]

Will there be conversion extensions in stdlib-jdk8 to/from java.time?

[ilya.gorbunov]

Yes, most likely in kotlin-stdlib-jdk8

[Marc Knaup]

To clarify - this is only about durations (mostly for measuring/timeouts etc.) and not groundwork for a full time API à la java.time, isn't it?

[serebit]

From what I understand @Marc Knaup, this is working towards a full time API, as JB has stated in here before that a kotlinx time lib is in the design phase

[Marc Knaup]

Afaik they don't plan a full date/time library:
https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/C3PQML5NU/p1558341886013800?thread_ts=1558293789.010400&cid=C3PQML5NU

[serebit]

but we don’t currently plan to have full blown date-time (with time-zones, etc) for stdlib (too heavy).

[serebit]

for stdlib

[serebit]

it won't be in the stdlib, like I said, it's a kotlinx time lib

[serebit]

it's been mentioned in here before, several times in fact

[Marc Knaup]

Yeah but my question was about date/time MPP lib in general and that was the answer.
I'll try to find the other indications because that's new to me (and good news then) 🙂

[Marc Knaup]

I can't find it. Can you please point me somewhere where I could find it? E.g. what channel?

[serebit]

If you search for "kotlinx time" the last mention was last November, when they were planning it but had yet to start on development. I believe it has been brought up since then but I can't find any additional indication of it

[spand]

Is TimedValue really needed if this gets merged? https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/KT-27856

[LeoColman]

I have some doubts with the duration constructs

[LeoColman]

(...)e.g. 1.5.minutes, 30.seconds, 500.milliseconds. Otherwise the extension function numericValue.toDuration(unit) can be used.

[LeoColman]

Wouldn't 1.5.minutes, for example, pollute the namespace?

[LeoColman]

We already have a very big amount of extension functions in that namespace, and perhaps adding more and more will make that namespace way too big?

[ilya.gorbunov]

@LeoColman These extensions are in kotlin.time package, which isn't imported by default.

[ilya.gorbunov]

@spand Even despite measureTime has contract, still val (result, elapsed) = measureTimedValue { ... } is more convenient than

val result: SomeType
val elapsed = measureTime { result = .... }

[LeoColman]

@ilya.gorbunov but when IntelliJ is autocompleting, they will show up, right?

[ilya.gorbunov]

Yes, they do.

[LeoColman]

That's what I'm afraid of. That list of functions will keep growing and growing. Do you see that as a possible issue?

[Marc Knaup]

Agree! It's annoying to have too many suggestions in autocompletion for things you rarely care about. That's a problem Xcode has right now with Swift where it became quite hard to find the right method sometimes.

It would be great though if there was a feature for extensions which only show up for literals.
E.g. 1.milliseconds is okay but for variables it won't show up 🙂

val errors = 1
errors.milliseconds // nope, not possible

[jw]

That would potentially allow the language to remove its special-casing for unsigned literals

[ilya.gorbunov]

@jw I don't think that would help specifically unsigned literals because the literal handling depends on u suffix.

[Marc Knaup]

Then like C++? 1ms custom suffixes (at some point in the future)?
Or 1.unsigned 😂

suffix fun <http://Int.ms|Int.ms>() = Milliseconds(this)
suffix fun Int.u() = UInt(this)