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Strange behavior manipulating dates

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# 1  
Old 09-28-2009
Strange behavior manipulating dates
Hi all!
I need to manipulate dates, but my system has a strange behavior with dates. Running this script at "Mon Sep 28 18:03:59 CEST 2009":
Code:
current_time=`date +%s`
echo "Time= $current_time"

formatDate=`date --date "1970-01-01 +$current_time sec" "+%Y-%m-%d  %H:%M:%S "`
echo "Format= $formatDate"

newDate=`date --date "$formatDate" +%s`
echo "newDate= $newDate"

formatDate2=`date --date "1970-01-01 +$newDate sec" "+%Y-%m-%d  %H:%M:%S "`
echo "Format2= $formatDate2"

it prints:
Quote:
Time= 1254153839
Format= 2009-09-28 17:03:59
newDate= 1254150239
Format2= 2009-09-28 16:03:59
So, every time I convert time from seconds since Epoch to human readable format it subtracts an hour. Does anybody knows why?
I don't know if this is important, but I'm in Spain, which is usually UTC+1, but now, in summer, we are UTC+2.

OS: CentOS
Kernel: 2.6.18-92.1.18.el5 x86_64

Thanks.
Last edited by AlbertGM; 09-28-2009 at 01:36 PM..
# 2  
Old 09-28-2009
Hi AlbertGM,

Here you are outputting the date in seconds since 1970-01-01 UTC.

Code:
current_time=`date +%s`
echo "Time= $current_time"

Here you are adding those seconds to 1970-01-01 in your local Time Zone (not UTC)
Code:
formatDate=`date --date "1970-01-01 +$current_time sec" "+%Y-%m-%d  %H:%M:%S "`
echo "Format= $formatDate"

# 3  
Old 09-29-2009
Thanks Scrutinizer,

I thought to get seconds from Epoch in UTC the command should be:
Code:
date --utc +%s

I just try it and both commands (with and without `--utc`) prints the same.
Although both commands returns time from UTC, there's a strange behavior, too. If I run `date`without parameters it tells me my local Time zone is CEST (Central European Summer Time), ie: UTC +2.
So, I retrieve seconds since Epoch (which are returned in UTC) I should add 2 hours to get the seconds in my time zone, right?
However If I convert this seconds variable to human readable format, the time has one hour more than correct.
For example this script is run at Tue Sep 29 14:19:51 CEST 2009:
Code:
currentTime=`date +%s` #Seconds since Epoch in UCT
echo "currentTime = $currentTime"
currentTime=$(( $currentTime + 7200 )) #Add two hours
echo "currentTime = $currentTime"
dateFormat=`date -d "1970-01-01 +$currentTime sec" "+%Y-%m-%d  %H:%M:%S "`
echo "dateFormat = $dateFormat"

It prints:
Quote:
currentTime = 1254226791
currentTime = 1254233991
dateFormat = 2009-09-29 15:19:51
You see they differ in one hour. You know why? There's something wrong in my script?

Thanks and sorry for my english Smilie
# 4  
Old 09-29-2009
I ran these commands on a machine that is set to CEST.
Code:
[me@somehost ~]$ date --date "1970-01-01" +%s
-3600
[me@somehost ~]$ date --date "1970-01-01"
Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 CET 1970
[me@somehost ~]$ date -u --date "1970-01-01"
Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 UTC 1970
[me@somehost ~]$ date -u --date "1970-01-01" +%s
0

I think what happens is dat when you ask for the date on 1970-01-01 it reports the time as it was on 1970-01-01, which is winter time and hence the time difference with UTC is only one hour. Note that it reports the time in CET (Central European Time), not in CEST (Central European Summer Time).
# 5  
Old 09-29-2009
That makes sense.
Any proposal to solve it, that works in summer as well as in winter time?
For example always ask for time zone. So, if CEST substract 1 hour, and if CET time is right. What do you think?

Thanks a lot!!!
# 6  
Old 09-29-2009
I don't think that should be necessary. What are you trying to do?
# 7  
Old 09-29-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrutinizer
I don't think that should be necessary. What are you trying to do?
I'm, trying to make some scripts that monitor system information using free, iostat, mpstat, vmstat.... and maybe sar/sadc commands.
That scripts must be launched with some delay between each execution.
Then, I will recollect such information with others scripts that will be ploted with gnuplot using dates on X axis.
To do some arithmetic (add the delay) with dates I work with seconds since Epoch, because it's easier to use with variables. However to plot graphics I need to convert seconds to a human readable format, to show them. Dates must be correct to match with other monitor processes (oracle, Weblogic, etc...)

Anyway, you helped me a lot to know how dates work and now I think I'm able to find out a way to get what I need.

Thanks.
Of course, any other help or advice will be very welcome Smilie
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