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<concept id="GUID-9B353979-7CCC-5F2C-8C82-3AD0FA04DC1E" xml:lang="en"><title>How

to format date and time independent of locale</title><shortdesc>Explains how to format and display universal time, current time,

date independent of locale settings.</shortdesc><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody>

<p>In these code fragments, all output is purely numerical, date and time

separators and formatting is fixed and locale independent.</p>

<p>To display the <keyword>universal time</keyword> and current <keyword>local

time</keyword> implement code as follows:</p>

<codeblock id="GUID-CF485281-AA00-5B06-ACB8-DEC963B5FB80" xml:space="preserve">  

TBuf<256> buffer;

    // Time in microseconds since 0 AD nominal Gregorian

TTime time;

    // year-month-day-hour-minute-second-microsecond

TDateTime dateTime;

    // Set and print Universal date/time

    // Get Universal time (= GMT)

time.UniversalTime();

    // Convert to fields

dateTime=time.DateTime();

    // Format universal time numerically

formatDateTime(buffer,dateTime);

    // Get current local time, taking daylight saving

    // into account, if in effect

time.HomeTime();

    // Convert to fields

dateTime=time.DateTime();

    // Format current local date/time numerically

formatDateTime(buffer,dateTime);</codeblock>

<p>Here, the formatting is handled by the <codeph>formatDateTime()</codeph> function.

This is implemented:</p>

<codeblock id="GUID-EEFBC539-C2A4-5058-9AA4-054108553357" xml:space="preserve">LOCAL_C void formatDateTime(TDes&amp; aBuffer,TDateTime aDateTime)

    {

    _LIT(KFormatTxt,"%d %d %d %d:%d:%d.%d\n");

    aBuffer.Format(KFormatTxt,

                   aDateTime.Year(),

                   TInt(aDateTime.Month()+1), 

                       // Format the month as a TInt to preserve locale independence

                   aDateTime.Day()+1, 

                       // Day and month ranges begin at zero (0-30 and 0-11), 

                       // so add one when formatting

                   aDateTime.Hour(), aDateTime.Minute(), aDateTime.Second(),

                   aDateTime.MicroSecond()

                  );

    {</codeblock>

<section id="GUID-C8C819FA-3610-421E-992A-DCAF0BBA5DE0"><title>Notes</title> <ul>

<li id="GUID-251F6052-CFE4-56DC-A136-4155DDDA4D35"><p>The <codeph>TTime</codeph> class

is used for storing and manipulating times. As it stores a time value as a

64 bit integer, it needs to be converted into a <codeph>TDateTime</codeph> object,

before it can be converted into formatted text.</p> </li>

<li id="GUID-CE3DCF35-0ACC-52E9-975D-6C07CD8E7DEA"><p><codeph>TDateTime</codeph> is

the intermediary class for all input and output of dates and times by the

user.</p> </li>

<li id="GUID-5BF59173-BF74-524E-BE3E-394E69647BA2"><p>In the <codeph>TDateTime</codeph> class,

the month is represented by a <xref href="GUID-56D0C59A-C271-33DA-820C-E3756E87CBAA.dita"><apiname>TMonth</apiname></xref> enumeration. The values

of this enumeration are relative to zero. Similarly, the day is represented

by a number whose value is zero for the first day in the month, one for the

second day etc. Therefore, when formatting <codeph>TDateTime</codeph> values,

as above, the integer representations of these fields must be incremented

by one; they must be decremented by one when converting from human-readable

values into <codeph>TDateTime</codeph> as the next example code fragment shows:</p> <codeblock id="GUID-3C33A2E8-0349-5DC0-B59F-C5A34BBA60F3" xml:space="preserve">

...

    // set date to 31st December 1996

    // set the date as if input from a user interface

TInt year=1996;

TInt month=12;

TInt day=31;

TInt error=dateTime.Set(year,TMonth(month-1),day-1,9,1,5,1000);

    // month and day values are zero-offset !

    // check that date/time are set ok

User::LeaveIfError(dateTime.Set(year,TMonth(month-1),day-1,9,1,5,1000));

...</codeblock> </li>

</ul> </section>