README.md

NTimeline

What is NTimeline?

NTimeline is a library to build a timeline which has several source which deliver points of time or durations.

Where can I use NTimeline?

NTimeline is a library which is designed to be uses in your business layer.

What does NTimeline?

Here some of the key operations of NTimeline:

• Collect points of time
• Collect durations
• Sort all collected data
• Get time slices from the created timeline

What are typical use cases for NTimeline?

• Calculate rates upon time slices
• Calculate a timeline upon points of time or time periods given by time sources

How to create a timeline?

It's quite easy. First you have to create a time source. NTimeline gives you an abstract base class called TimeSourceBase which implements the interface ITimeSource:

public class TestSource : TimeSourceBase
{
    public override IList<TimeElement> CreateTimeElements()
    {
        return new List<TimeElement> {
            new TimeElement(new DateTime(2010, 1, 1), true),
            new TimeElement(new DateTime(2010, 3, 1), true) };
    }
    
    public override bool IsValid(Duration duration)
    {
        // Dummy implementation
        return true;
    }
}

Now you can already build a timeline:

TestSource source = new TestSource();
Timeline timeline = new Timeline();
timeline.AddTimeSource(source);
timeline.Build();

How to walk through a timeline?

That is also quite easy. First you have create your visitor. NTimeline provide the interface ITimelineVisitor, so your class has to implement this interface.

public class ConsoleVisitor : ITimelineVisitor
{
    public void Visit(TimePeriod period)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Visit period {0}", period);
    }
}

Now you have to call the following method on your timeline instance:

ConsoleVisitor visitor = new ConsoleVisitor();
timeline.VisitTimePeriods(visitor);