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NeXT Question

by Simson L. Garfinkel

Q: What's the easiest way to put a printable ASCII representation of a time_t into a TextField?

Judy Koeppel

Somerville, MA

A: Use Objective-C's facility for categories to add a setDateValue: method to the TextField class. Create a new #import file called TextFieldAdditions.h that looks like this:

	#import 
	#import 

	@interface TextField(Additions)
	- setDateValue:(time_t)time;
	@end
	Place the definition for the Additions category in a file called TextFieldAdditions.m:
	#import "TextFieldAdditions.h"

	@implementation TextField(Additions)
	- setDateValue:(time_t)time
	{
	        [self   setStringValue:asctime(localtime(&time))];
 	       return self;
	}
	@end

Now you can send any TextField a message like this:

	[aTextField	setDateValue:timeval];

And have it look like this:

Tue Feb 4 11:17:28 1992

Simson L. Garfinkel is a senior editor at NeXTWORLD.