Re: seconds since 1601 -- RPG400-L

The date/time stamp is in seconds since 00:00:00 January 1 1601 like127122881993040000. Anyone know how to translate the number of secondselapsed since 00:00:00, January 1, 1601, to a date and time?

The sample number you've provided does not make sense. That number iswaaaaaay too high to be a number of seconds. That number equates toapproximately 4028281047 years. (Take a calculator and divide it by 60 toget minutes, 60 again to get hours, 24 to get days, and 365.25 to get anumber of years. The result will be 4028281047.)

Since 1601 was only 406 years ago, that number can't possibly be a numberof seconds. (Unless your users can time travel to 4 billion years in thefuture.)

That being the case, I fired up Google and did some searching to try tofind out what that number really means. I found the following post, whichwas very helpful:

http://tinyurl.com/y5jhll

The post says "First off the 64 bit Integer Time Values (Called Integer8)represents the number of 100 nanosecond intervals between the time stampand January 1, 1601." That makes a lot more sense -- and should make itquite easy to calculate in RPG. Just divide by 10 million to get a numberof seconds, then use the date/time operations to convert it to atimestamp.

Here's some fixed-format RPG code that converts from that timestamp to anRPG timestamp field:


  D StartPoint      c                   z'1601-01-01-00.00.00.000000'
  D AD_Time         s             20u 0 inz(127122881993040000)
  D Result          s               Z

  C                   div       10000000      AD_Time
  C     StartPoint    adddur    AD_Time:*S    Result

Not so tough when you know what the number means :) Of course, I'dprefer to do it in free format.. so here's the same thing in free format.


  D StartPoint      c                   z'1601-01-01-00.00.00.000000'
  D AD_Time         s             20u 0 inz(127122881993040000)
  D Result          s               Z

   /free
       Result = StartPoint + %seconds(%div(AD_TIME:10000000));

The next question is "What time zone is that time stamp in?". That poistdoesn't explcitly say, but they tell you how to convert the timestamp sothat it'll be compatible with the localtime(), gmtime() and ctime() Cfunctions. Since I also do programming in C, I know that those 3functions take their input in Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) rather thanin the computer's local time.

The ILE environment provides an API called CEEUTCO that will provide(among other things) the number of seconds difference between yoursystem's current (local) time, and UTC. You could add that number to thetimestamp to give you a timestamp that's in the local time zone.


For example, you could do this:

  H DFTACTGRP(*NO)

  D CEEUTCO         PR                  opdesc
  D   Hours                       10I 0
  D   Minutes                     10I 0
  D   Seconds                      8F
  D   Feedback                    12a   options(*omit)

  D StartPoint      c                   z'1601-01-01-00.00.00.000000'
  D AD_Time         s             20u 0 inz(127122881993040000)
  D Result          s               Z
  D junk1           s             10I 0
  D junk2           s             10I 0
  D seconds         s              8F

   /free
       // Get the number of seconds between local time
       // and UTC time.

       CEEUTCO( junk1: junk2: seconds: *omit);

       Result = StartPoint + %seconds(%div(AD_TIME:10000000))
               + %seconds(%int(seconds));

After this code has run, if you display the time stamp value, you'll seethe value as a "sensible" number. I live in the US Central time zone,which is 6 hours earlier than UTC time. When I run the preceding code, Iget a timestamp of 2003-11-02-17.09.59.000000.

Of course, you (or someone else reading this) may want your date/time innumeric fields instead of a timestamp field. If that's the case, you cando the following to convert it to a number. (Requires V5R2)


       Date8 = %int(%char(%date(Result):*ISO0));
       Time6 = %int(%char(%time(Result):*HMS0));

Okay, I'll stop trying to anticipate your future questions now :) But, ifyou have some, please ask...