Pulse Documentation

name: op-synth-uniform-date
description: Uniform calendar-date samples in [start, end] inclusive; days-since-epoch internally.
kind: operator
category: SYNTH
operator: uniform_date
type: reference
applies_to: inspect, predict, manifest
examples_tags: [synth, time-series]

Synth distributions emit per-row values; no Response.Components.

Use when

Draws calendar dates between a start and an end date, every day equally likely, both ends included.

Questions it answers:

• How do I spread synthetic orders across 2024?
• How do I generate sign-up dates within the last quarter?

Use something else:

• uniform when the field is a plain number, not a date.
• constant when every row shares one date.

Params

• start / end — string, both required, ISO-8601 YYYY-MM-DD. end must not precede start; equal is legal. Each parses via time.Parse("2006-01-02", …) into days-since-1970-01-01.

Inputs

Field type: — date (32-bit days-since-epoch).

Output

Per-row float64 days-since-epoch; the writer stores it as the signed 32-bit date word. Draws off = rng.Int64N(span + 1) over span = endDays - startDays, so both endpoints are reachable.

Gotchas

• Both bounds inclusive — uniform_date(2024-01-01, 2024-12-31) can emit either.
• Unparseable dates → SERVICE_VALIDATION (“invalid start date” / “invalid end date”). end == start is legal (every draw on that day); only end < start → SERVICE_VALIDATION (“end must not be before start”).
• Epoch is 1970-01-01; pre-epoch dates are legal — date stores signed int32 days, so they are negative.
• For sub-day granularity model the timestamp as u64 seconds-since-epoch via uniform.

See

• pulse_examples_search tags=[synth]
• Skills: synthetic-data, op-synth-uniform, op-synth-monotonic-from