How to calculate billable time in Ruby using epoch-seconds. Out of interest,I ported the Perl-Code to Ruby and have to say, wow. Ruby is very elegant (not sure if my code is, but it works).
The idea was to use another (scripting-)language readily available on OS X. As I said already, it works like the Perl-version:
#!/usr/bin/ruby
# Variables
starttime = Time.now
epochtime = starttime.to_i
# write to file
timetemp = File.new("timetemp.txt", "w+")
timetemp.puts epochtime
timetemp.close # always close files
#output information for copying
puts "customer|topic"
puts "Start: #{starttime}"
puts ""
start_record.rb gets the current time in epoch-seconds and writes it to a file called timetemp.txt in the same directory. Nothing new here, but I like the construct timetemp.puts epochtime, Ruby is very clean. 
When you’re done, end_record.rb is used to read in the starting time and to perform the necessary calculations:
#!/usr/bin/ruby
# Variables
endtime = Time.now
endsecs = endtime.to_i
# open the file
timetemp = File.open("timetemp.txt")
startsecs = timetemp.readline.to_i
timetemp.close # always close files
#calculations
starttime = Time.at(startsecs)
timesecs = endsecs - startsecs
timeminutes = (timesecs.to_f / 60)
timehours = (timeminutes / 60)
# output results
puts "Start: #{starttime}"
puts "End: #{endtime}"
puts "Seconds: #{timesecs}"
puts "Minutes: #{timeminutes}"
puts "Hours: #{timehours}"
puts ""
puts "Bill: "
puts ""
If you don’t want to copy and paste from the terminal-window, simply pipe the results to a file like this:
$ > ruby start_record.rb > my_file.txt
and when you’re done
$ > ruby end_record.rb >> my_file.txt
Remember though, > means overwrite the file if it exists. If you want to append, use >>. This might be obvious to most people fluent in UNIX, but should be noted as a “just in case you need to know”.
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