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Expression for Digital Clock
Dan/Anyone
in a past posting: “Expressions for a Digital 24 Hour Clock” https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=873535
you posted a source text exprssion:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=862284i have to write a clock that starts at a specific point and stops at a specific point over a specified period… i.e. clock starts at 30.0 seconds and over 2 second climb to 43.14 seconds.
i am new to this and can rework your expression but am confused on a couple things:
what is taking place here in your expression:
function digits(myVal,myNumDigits){
var s = myVal.toString();
while (s.length < myNumDigits) s = '0' + s; return s; } i can follow the rest but am having trouble with what "function" is performing (adobe help, wasnt) then waht is the digits command accomplishing... s i take it is getting the length of myVal i think i can figure it from there... just am not sure what is happening at the beginning... thanks, -
6 Replies
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The digits() function just converts an integer value to a specified number of text digits, padding the front with zero as necessary. For example, digits(9,3) would give you the string “009” (I think).
Dan
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It sounds like you might just need something like this expression applied to the source text of a text layer:
t = linear(time,0,2,30,43.14);
str = “” + Math.round(t*100);
str.substr(0,str.length-2) + “.” + str.substr(-2)Dan
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Thanks Dan, I greatly appreciate your site motionscript.com! it is educating me quite a bit! but i also think i need to get a book to study more in depth!. your solution works great! Thanks
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In the code you quoted, “function” is defining a function. In this case, that function is called digits.
I expect that later in the expression, there’s something like:
digits(timecode,4);When it reaches this point, because digits has already been defined as a function, it executes the code contained within the { } with the values of myVal=timecode and myNumDigits=4.
Defining functions is something that’s useful sometimes to organize large amounts of code, or to re-use the same code multiple times.
Does this make sense?
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Thanks that does help quite a bit! I come from a bit of a Pascal programming experiance so i am having to crosstrain my thoughts into java… so your explaintion helps to understand the procedures, thanks again
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I think Pascal has functions.
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