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Re: Help with a function to return the 'age' of itself

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg61439] Re: [mg61392] Help with a function to return the 'age' of itself
• From: "Carl K. Woll" <carl at woll2woll.com>
• Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 02:16:23 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <200510180644.CAA11166@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

heycarnut wrote:
> I'm trying to create a function, that when instantiated, keeps a 'copy'
> of say the current absolute time, but when the instance is called, it
> returns the delta between this 'copy' of the time and the current
> absolute time. I have done this:
>
>
> In[47]:= tt:=Hold[AbsoluteTime[]]-AbsoluteTime[];
>         y=tt;
>         N[Release[y]]
>         Pause[10]
>         N[Release[y]]
>
>
> Out[49]=0.
>
> Out[51]=10.
>
> But I don't want to have to do an explicit release, i'd like to just be
> able to evaluate y, in this case, and get the current value.
> Help?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Rob
>

How about:

start := With[{cur = AbsoluteTime[]}, y := AbsoluteTime[] - cur]

Use start to instantiate your y function:

start

Now, you can check how long it's been since start:

In[16]:=
y
Pause[2]
y

Out[16]=
103.5625000

Out[18]=
105.5937500

Let's check the definition of y:

In[19]:=
?y
Global`y
                                           9
y := AbsoluteTime[] - 3.3386204777812500 10

Carl Woll
Wolfram Research 

• References:
  • Help with a function to return the 'age' of itself
    • From: "heycarnut" <heycarnut@gmail.com>