Changing Formula value based on time

[Dominic]

Hi, I've been looking around but not sure if there's a way to do this:

Let's say the cost of something is $10 before Jan 1 2020, and I know it changes to $20 after Jan 1 2020.

Is there a way I can put this all into one formula, so that the signal would be 10 before Jan 1 2020, and 20 after Jan 1 2020? It would look like a stepwise signal.

Thanks!

[Joe Reckamp]

Hi Dominic,

You can use the splice function in Formula to complete this request. I'm assuming your cost changes each year so you may want to splice in a different cost for each year. For example, you can use the following Formula to say take the current cost of $20 and splice in $10 cost for all of 2019 so that on January 1st, it steps up to the new cost:

20$.tosignal().splice(10$.tosignal(), condition(1y, capsule('2019')))

Let me also break this Formula down a bit so that you understand it better. In the first part, we are saying take a value of $20 (as a signal) as the default result, which means that anytime before or after 2019 (in this case), the value would equal $20. However, when the capsule is present in the condition in the splice condition is met (in this case it's a capsule for all of 2019), the $10 signal will be spliced instead of the $20 signal. I also want to note that the '1y' argument in the condition is the maximum duration. If you wanted to expand the capsule to be longer than 1 year, you would also need to edit that value.

If you want to add additional years at the $10 value, you can simply add them as more capsules in the condition argument. For example, adding 2018:

20$.tosignal().splice(10$.tosignal(), condition(1y, capsule('2019'), capsule('2018')))

If you want to add different values instead (let's say $15 for 2018), you could use the following modification:

20$.tosignal().splice(10$.tosignal(), condition(1y, capsule('2019'))).splice(15$.tosignal(), condition(1y, capsule('2018')))

 

[Dominic]

Thanks Joe! This works for a 1 year format.

If I wanted to get more specific for the date range on the price, let's say it's 10$ between Feb 1 2019 and May 12 2019, how would I adjust the date range in the capsule?

I tried using

20.toSignal().splice(10.tosignal(), condition(100d,capsule('2019-02-01','2019-05-12')))

but I don't think I'm using the capsule or the condition function right.

Thanks!

[Joe Reckamp]

Hi Dominic,

In order to specify both start and end time, you have to specify the exact time rather than just the day as the day or year option creates both a start and end time (for example, '2019' created both a start of Jan 1, 2019 at 12:00 AM and an end of Jan 1, 2020 at 12:00 AM). Therefore, your function would need to be formatted like this:

20$.tosignal().splice(10$.tosignal(), condition(100d, capsule('2019-02-01T00:00Z','2019-05-12T00:00Z')))

 

[Dominic]

Awesome, worked like a charm. Thanks so much Joe!