Question

Convert sybase datetime to time in seconds since unix epoch

Asked by: Grantcr

Hi Guys

I am looking for a way to convert master..sysdatabases columns: crdate and dumptrdate into seconds since the UNIX epoch.  Perferably I would like the databases to do this but failing that a C/C++ function that does it

Thanks

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Asked On
2007-03-27 at 01:27:03ID22474321
Tags

sybase

,

datetime

,

convert

Topic

Sybase Database

Participating Experts
2
Points
125
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: bretPosted on 2007-03-27 at 08:18:12ID: 18800557

The TSQL datediff function is probably the place to start, you can get the difference between any two dates in various units, including seconds.  You will  then need to make adjustments for the difference between the time zone the date is from and UTC.  And adjustments for whether the date was affected by daylight savings time or not.  Note that ASE doesn't store any information about time zone or daylight savings time, and the environment ASE ran under may have changed over time (i.e. from one time zone to another if corporate headquarters moved, etc.), so you may need to gather some historical metaknowledge about the server's history to get a correct result.  I don't think the datediff function makes any adjustments for leap seconds, either.

(I recommend running ASE servers in a UTC environment, making clients responsible for any conversions to their local timezone).

 

by: knel1234Posted on 2007-03-27 at 15:14:26ID: 18804017

select datediff(ss, sd.crdate, sd.dumptrdate)
    from sysdatabases sd

I am able to retrieve the seconds between the 2 timestamps.
36495950
36407822
11106342
Command has been aborted.

Unfortunately, the problem is that the crdate will often default to 1/1/1900.
This causes a 535 error and the Command has aborted message above.

It is important to remember that datediff produces results of datatype int, and causes errors if the result is greater than 2,147,483,647.
1)For seconds, this is 68 years, 19 days, 3:14:07 hours.
2)For milliseconds, this is approximately 24 days, 20:31.846 hours.

cheers
knel

 

by: knel1234Posted on 2007-03-27 at 15:21:05ID: 18804052



FYI

I added my thoughts just for another point of view.  However, you should be mindful of Brets comments.  
In addition, this year (2007) is perfect example of potential issues relating to daylight savings time.

You might want to rethink the question.  What question(s) are you really trying to answer?

cheers
knel

 

by: GrantcrPosted on 2007-03-28 at 02:05:25ID: 18806572

Thanks guys that information is very usful, it also explains why they take the epoch from 1900 in this function:

(Taken from)
http://cvs.zope.org/Products/ZSybaseDA/src/ctsybase.c?rev=1.3

#define EPOCH_DAYS_SINCE_1900     25567
#define SYBASE_TICKS_PER_SECOND     300
#define SECONDS_PER_DAY           86400

/*****************************************************************************
 *                                                                           *
 * CS_DATETIMEToTimestamp : convert a time in CS_DATETIME format to a        *
 *                          unix timestamp                                   *
 *                                                                           *
 * Arguments:                                                                *
 *        date - the date in CS_DATETIME format                              *
 *                                                                           *
 * Remarks:                                                                  *
 *                                                                           *
 ****************************************************************************/

static time_t
CS_DATETIMEToTimestamp (CS_DATETIME date)
{
  return ((date.dtdays - EPOCH_DAYS_SINCE_1900) * SECONDS_PER_DAY) +
    (date.dttime / SYBASE_TICKS_PER_SECOND);
}

Can anyone confirm this function is correct?

 

by: bretPosted on 2007-03-28 at 14:30:14ID: 18812035

Well, assuming that the CS_DATETIME is a UTC value, it is certainly close, but I'd be careful making that assumption.   It doesn't make any adjustments for leap seconds, though (but then, I don't know if UNIX time does either).

 

by: GrantcrPosted on 2007-03-29 at 03:47:26ID: 18814862

Well I got it working thanks for you help guys

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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