EmacsOrgTimestamps

Today I had to do some profiling of how long each phase of a software install took. The tool I was using printed output like this:

11:40:58.096    95      exit 0
11:40:58.272    96      current version: 5.296
11:40:58.274    97      Password:
11:41:15.215    98      Password:
11:41:15.561    99      Connection to server closed.

The format is timestamp, line number, output.

First I wanted an easy way to calculate the offset between two timestamp. I had been reading the emacs calc manual and I noticed that calc supported hour-minute-second calculations. Thus, my first project was to figure out how to get calc-mode to actually work with time offsets. Here's the process I eventually arrived at:

• Start calc-mode with <esc>x calc
• Input the last timestamp in calc HMS format: 11@40'58.096"↵

org-mode manual: http://orgmode.org/manual/index.html

problem with sum functions in org-mode tables: http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/[email protected]/6870504.html

avoid parsing calc HMS forms as ranges: as http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg08470.html

write up installing org-mode with aquamacs, including changing path to emacs in Makefile