getdate

Arguments

curDatetime

vector of integers with

Index	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Content	year	month	week	yearday	weekday	monthday	hour	minute	second	millisecond
Range	≥ 1970	[1,12]	[1,53]	[1,366]	[1,7] 1=sunday	[1,31]	[0,23]	[0,59]	[0,59]	[0,999]

timeStamp

integer number of seconds elapsed since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, excluding leap seconds, as defined by the POSIX standard (see description).

timeStamps

Array of positive decimal numbers representing POSIX timestamps. Negative timestamps are not accepted.

dateTimes

length(timeStamps)-by-10 Matrix: The row #i elements are datetime data corresponding to timeStamps(i), as documented for curDatetime, except that dateTimes(:,10) are fractions of second in [0,1) instead of milliseconds. dateTimes are expressed in the current computer's time zone.

Description

getdate() returns the current datetime of the computer's clock, expressed in the Gregorian calendar, and for the computer's time zone + possible daylight saving offset.

Nowadays, most of computers are automatically synchronized with the legal time for the considered time zone, through time servers. Legal datetimes are synchronized on the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), by a known time zone (and daylight saving) offset.

getdate("s") reads the computer's clock and returns the corresponding POSIX timestamp. This corresponds to the number of seconds elapsed since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, except that leap seconds are not counted. Hence, if n = getdate("s") is run at an exact round hour, modulo(n, 3600) will return 0 instead of cumulated leap seconds added since 1972 (27s, up to 2020).

getdate(timeStamps) returns the status of the local computer's clock for the given POSIX time stamps, that may include fractional seconds. If any, the computer's current Daylight Saving offset is never considered. getdate(0) will return 1970-01-01 00:00:00 only if the clock is set for the time zone = 0. Otherwise, for instance for Scilab users living in Bélem, Brazil, UTC-3, getdate(0) returns 1969-12-31 21:00:00, actually corresponding to 1970-01-01 00:00:00 POSIX.

Examples

D = getdate()
mprintf("%d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d:%06.3f\n", D(1), D(2), D(6:8), D(9)+D(10)/1000);

x = getdate("s");
mprintf("%.2f\n", x)

D = getdate(0)
mprintf("%d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d:%06.3f\n", D(1), D(2), D(6:8), D(9)+D(10)/1000);

--> D = getdate()
 D  = 
   2020.   7.   30.   208.   1.   26.   23.   8.   28.   474.

--> mprintf("%d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d:%06.3f\n", D(1), D(2), D(6:8), D(9)+D(10)/1000);
2020-07-26 23:08:28.474

--> x = getdate("s");
--> mprintf("%.2f\n", x)
1595797708.00

--> D = getdate(0)
 D  = 
   1970.   1.   1.   1.   5.   1.   1.   0.   0.   0.

--> mprintf("%d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d:%06.3f\n", D(1), D(2), D(6:8), D(9)+D(10)/1000);
1970-01-01 01:00:00.000

getdate("s") ignores leap seconds:

s = 1;
// Expecting the next round minute @ your clock. Please be patient..
while s <> 0
    D = getdate();
    x = getdate("s");
    s = D(9);
    sleep(300) // ms. To not use 100% of your processor
end
// If leap seconds are taken into account, they would appear here (27, in 2020):
modulo(x, 60)

--> modulo(x, 60)
 ans  =
   0.

getdate([1e9, 2e9, 3e9] + 0.21) // Note the fractional seconds

--> getdate([1e9, 2e9, 3e9] + 0.21)
 ans  =
   2001.   9.   36.   252.   1.   9.    3.   46.   40.   0.21
   2033.   5.   20.   138.   4.   18.   5.   33.   20.   0.21
   2065.   1.   4.    24.    7.   24.   6.   20.   0.    0.21

See also

• calendar — Calendar of a given month and year (Gregorian dates)
• date — Current date as date string
• clock — Return the current Gregorian datetime and international time zone of the computer's clock
• timer — cpu time
• datenum — Convert to serial date number