Calculations & constants

The templating engine provides built-in constants and functions for date handling and arithmetic — no custom data binding required.

The current date (now)

@now is a built-in constant that resolves to the server's current date and time, formatted as yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss. You can offset it by an amount and unit, and pipe it through dateFormat for display.

Parameters

argument	type	description
amount	number	Amount to offset (positive or negative)
qualifier	string	Unit: years/y, months/mm, days/d, hours/h, minutes/m, seconds/s, milliseconds/ms

Example — assume current date/time is 2025-07-22 08:00:00

{{ @now }}                          -> '2025-07-22 08:00:00'
{{ @now(-2, hours) }}               -> '2025-07-22 06:00:00'
{{ @now(-30, minutes) }}            -> '2025-07-22 07:30:00'
{{ @now | dateFormat:'dd-MM-yyyy' }} -> '22-07-2025'

Useful for stamping the document generation time on invoices and notifications.

---

Date difference

Calculates the difference between two dates. Assumes date1 is before date2; returns a negative number otherwise.

dateDiff date1 date2 operator fractionalResult

argument	type	description
date1	string	Start date/time
date2	string	End date/time
operator	string	Unit: year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second
fractionalResult	boolean	Optional: 'true' to return a decimal result

Example — port stay from arrival to departure

{{dateDiff '2025-07-20 06:00:00' '2025-07-22 18:30:00' 'days' }}         => 2
{{dateDiff '2025-07-20 06:00:00' '2025-07-22 18:30:00' 'days' 'true' }}  => 2.52083333...
{{dateDiff '2025-07-20 06:00:00' '2025-07-22 18:30:00' 'hours' }}        => 60

---

Math

Performs a simple arithmetic operation on two values.

math number operator value

argument	type	description
number	string	The base number
operator	string	One of: +, -, *, /
value	string	The second operand

Example

{{math 75000 '*' 0.05 }}   => 3750    (5% port dues on 75,000 t cargo)
{{math 1250 '/' 4 }}       => 312.5   (split invoice across 4 customers)
{{math 48 '+' 12 }}        => 60      (total transit hours)

---

Math over a list (mathArray)

Performs an aggregate calculation (sum, average, min, max, count, or sumproduct) over an array.

mathArray value method property

argument	type	description
value	array	The array to aggregate
method	string	One of: average, count, max, min, sum, sumproduct
property	string	The field to read from each item (omit for simple value arrays)

Example

Considering the following data:
{
  shipments: [
    { "vessel": "Ocean Star",  "customer": "Blue Tide Shipping", "tonnage": 52000 },
    { "vessel": "Blue Marlin", "customer": "Maas Bulk",          "tonnage": 38000 },
    { "vessel": "Nordic Wind", "customer": "Delta Logistics",    "tonnage": 71000 },
    { "vessel": "Cape Horn",   "customer": "Maas Bulk",          "tonnage": 45000 }
  ],
  portCalls: [4, 7, 3, 6]
}

{{mathArray shipments 'count' }}               => 4
{{mathArray shipments 'sum' 'tonnage' }}        => 206000
{{mathArray shipments 'average' 'tonnage' }}    => 51500
{{mathArray shipments 'min' 'tonnage' }}        => 38000
{{mathArray shipments 'max' 'tonnage' }}        => 71000
{{mathArray portCalls 'sum' }}                  => 20