Is there an equivalent to ConvertTimeFromUtc in MS SQL Server? - sql-server

Is there a function in SQL Server that will convert a DateTime saved as UTC time to the local time? The problem is that I have times saved as UTC times, and I used to calculate time zone offset as
select #tzoffset = datediff(mi,SYSDATETIMEOFFSET(),SYSDATETIME())
and adding that to my UTC times, which worked fine until daylight saving came.
As that selects the current time zone offset, the calculation is invalid for pre-DST values.
As the dates are rendered in ASP.NET web form, I have worked around the issue by rendering the dates as TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeFromUtc((DateTime)Eval("maxtime"), TimeZoneInfo.Local), which works automagically.
Is there something similarly elegant in T-SQL?

It is not that simple. Read this http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bartd/archive/2009/03/31/the-death-of-datetime.aspx

Related

SQL/Navision DateTime Issue

I don't know if anyone else has experiencing this issue before
I have DateTime Data in a MsSQl table but when displaying the same data in Navison 2013, it is displaying the time wrongly.
2018-12-14 08:20:22.000 is being displayed as 14-12-18 11:20:22 AM
Any suggestions ?
Thanks in Advance
The time stored in the SQL database will be stored in UTC. However, since you're based in Kenya (I assume from your profile), your time zone is UTC+3. Navision (Dynamics NAV) automatically converts UTC time into your local time zone.
So if you're writing to the database directly without going through Navision you should use UTC time to save the time.

MS SQL to Excel - Timezones

I have
an SQL Server 2012, where datetime fields are stored in UTC time
an Excel File, that is integrated via ADO DB command objects to the SQL server
a function to check the current system settings, which allows to see the current system's difference to UTC
I need to display dates/times in Excel in local time (varies).
Until SQL Server 2016 (which we can't currently upgrade to), there is no Timezone support built-in to T-SQL.
There are various options that are playing around in my head, but I can't decide which one is worth pursuing:
- transmit the current time difference as a parameter to the Stored Procedure, and amend all date fields to apply that difference
- retrieve the UTC times, and return the field(s) as a formula (so instead of return field, field, created, modified I might return field, field, =fnUtcToLocal(#created#)... and so on
- retrieve UTC times, and use an adjacent formula (with QueryTable.FillAdjacentFormulas)
Regardless of the option, I've still got a problem left: When, for example, checking the system difference now in Excel when the user is in Eastern Standard Time, it is -5 hours. When my created date falls into the EDT time, the correction would still be -5 instead of -4 hours.
Does anyone have a smart idea on how I should approach this? Please let me know if any additonal detail is required.

How can I manage timezone differences between client and server in Silverlight?

I have SL 5 app with a form which has a field for Date.
I set the default date for this field in code like:
MyDate = System.DateTime.Today;
Or
MyDate = System.DateTime.Now.Date;
then submit the data with WCF Ria Service to save the data into database.
Problem is: if time zone on user client computer and Web server are different, the data of date would be saved with different value.
For example, today is Jan-03-2013, when I save the data from the form, in database, the data is saved as something like Jan-02-2013 23:00:00., not Jan-03-2013 00:00:00.
How to fix this problem?
you could try using
MyDate = DateTime.UtcNow
which would return utc time to the server then you can either store all datetimes as utc or manipulate it before saving to the the db (so it would be saved as server's local time)
In addition to timezone differences, there can be also real date value difference between client and server.
For that reason I think you should always get the date from server each time or you should ger the time at the application startup from both the client and server and find the the difference interval. Then you should calculate server datetime by adding the difference to the local date value.
For the timezone differences, also you should alway work in UTC format bu you should show the value to the user as local timezone format of course.

DateTime.Today value changed when sending to the server

I am working with Silverlight and I am getting a problem. In my Database I have stored some dates with a format like this yyyy/mm/dd 00:00:00, which means that I store only the year, month and day, getting the time to 00:00:00.
When the client performs an action and sends to the server I get the DateTime.Today which will keep the format of my database date, but when it is sendind I get yyyy/mm/dd 22:00:00, so when my server side function gets the date, it will return no values from the database.
How can I fix this to get the correct datetime?
Thank you
Use UTC times to make sure you don't run into timezone issues.
You can see if the DateTime is UTC or local based by checking the Kind property, and you can get the current UTC time by DateTime.UtcNow.
DateTime structure is very prone to DST, timezones and cultures when serialising it.
are you serialising it at client side before push it ? what is the difference between client and server timezones ?
I would suggest that you try and consume DateTime.UtcNow and then serialise the data. i prefer to serialise using Invariant culture
HTH
In addition to storing UTC time in the database, you can hard set the time to 12:00:00 for all date values by using the Date property of the DateTime class.
DateTime.UtcNow.Date
You can present the date to the user in their local timezone using the ToLocalTime method:
DateTime.ToLocalTime().Date
I'm sure every database engine has a similar function, but the SQL Server function to get UTC date is (surprisingly enough):
GETUTCDATE()
I hope this helps.

SOLR 3.1 - Date Issues

We are using SOLR 3.1 and facing many problems with dates.
We are using database Sql Server 2005. So, when we imported data from database to collection, the first problem we faced is, 4 hours difference in the database and collection dates. For example, if database has date like 6/2/2011 10:00:00 PM it would be in the collection like this 2011-06-03T02:00:00Z. I am simply using database field to import. There is not date format or any other function involve in between.
How can we sort records by date? Right now, i am using it like this (*:*)&sort=resumeupdate+desc to fetch all the records and sort it by date. But it is not sorting properly.
Solr always stores its dates in UTC time. You need to both import your dates by transforming them to UTC and then convert your timestamps into UTC when you sort/filter. The dates Solr will return to you will be in UTC time, so you will need to convert them to the time zone you are in. Please see this issue for more details.
Otherwise, if everything is in UTC format then it should sort properly.

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