Just to emphasise my point in my comments. This is how you can read the clocks preferences via objective-c;
CFStringRef appID;
CFPropertyListRef newCP;
appID = CFSTR("com.apple.menuextra.clock");
CFStringRef Key = CFSTR("IsAnalog");
newCP = CFPreferencesCopyAppValue (
Key,
appID
);
NSLog(@" newCP %@", newCP);
or in Applescript:
set theClock to quoted form of (do shell script "read com.apple.menuextra.clock IsAnalog ")
But without knowing more this maybe a pointless answer.