Time calculations

The Dates and times page covers how Rhyme stores times. This page covers the timefn set — the actions that read and format times, get the current time, and check the user’s timezone.

Every timefn action returns a value — capture the result with $result = , just like the math and date actions.

Getting the current time

$now = time-now
// current time as "HH:MM:SS", e.g. "14:30:45"

time-now takes no arguments — it always reads the system clock.

Reading parts of a time

Action	What it does	Example
get-hour	Hour, 0–23	$h = get-hour from $timestamp
get-minute	Minute, 0–59	$m = get-minute from $timestamp
get-second	Second, 0–59	$s = get-second from $timestamp
get-time	All three combined, as HH:MM:SS	$t = get-time from $timestamp

Each takes a timestamp value connected with from:

$sample = "2025-11-14T14:30:45"
$hour = get-hour from $sample
$minute = get-minute from $sample
$second = get-second from $sample
// 14, 30, 45

$hms = get-time from $sample
// "14:30:45"

get-time always returns the fixed HH:MM:SS format. For any other layout, use format-time.

Formatting a time

format-time takes a template, the same way format-date does. Useful tokens: HH/H for 24-hour, hh/h for 12-hour, mm for minutes, ss for seconds, and A/a for AM/PM:

$sample = "2025-11-14T14:30:45"
$formatted = format-time $sample as "h:mm A"
// "2:30 PM"

$formatted2 = format-time $sample as "HH:mm:ss"
// "14:30:45"

Timezone and network time

get-browser-timezone reads the user’s device timezone. It returns an object rather than a single value, so pull out the field you need:

$timezone = get-browser-timezone
.text "Your timezone: {$timezone.timezone}"

get-internet-time fetches the current time from a network time service, for situations where you don’t trust the device clock. It also returns an object, and can fail if the network is unavailable:

$internet-time = get-internet-time

Common mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Calling get-time/get-hour/etc. without from	The connecting word is required: get-hour from $timestamp
Expecting get-browser-timezone/get-internet-time to return plain text	They return an object — access a field, e.g. $timezone.timezone
Reaching for format-time when the default HH:MM:SS is fine	Use the simpler get-time from $timestamp instead

Complete example: time-based greeting and log line

$sample = "2026-08-22T09:15:00"
$current-hour = get-hour from $sample

if $current-hour < 12:
  .text "Good morning!" -bold
:else
  .text "Good afternoon!" -bold
:end

$log-time = format-time $sample as "HH:mm:ss"
.text "[{$log-time}] Task started"