Accessing Time Data
Developing TACL Programs
2–18
107365 Tandem Computers Incorporated
Local timestamp, a three-word timestamp. This timestamp represents the number
of centiseconds (.01 second) since 00:00 December 31, 1974. An example is:
45553140000
A local timestamp can represent one of the following three time zones:
Local civil time (LCT): The time of day locally. This is in either standard time
or daylight-saving time, depending on the area and the time of year.
Local standard time (LST): The time of day expressed in standard time.
Local daylight time (LDT): The time of day expressed in daylight-saving time.
The daylight-saving time system extends the amount of daylight in the
evenings by advancing the civil time. Usually, but not always, this is done in
hour increments.
Numeric date, a space-separated list in Gregorian date form—year, month, day,
hour, minute, second, and fraction of a second. If obtained for a Julian timestamp,
the list starts with the Julian day number. Examples include:
1992 4 28 22 59 17 88—converted from a three-word timestamp
2447635 1992 4 28 22 59 17 88—converted from a four-word timestamp
Textual date, in Gregorian form, such as:
May 7, 1992 08:30:00
Retrieving a Timestamp
Use the following built-in functions to retrieve date and time information from the
system:
#JULIANTIMESTAMP obtains the current timestamp, in Julian (four-word)
format.
#TIMESTAMP obtains the current timestamp, in local (three-word) format.
For example:
14> #TIMESTAMP
#TIMESTAMP expanded to:
54861863444
15> #JULIANTIMESTAMP
#JULIANTIMESTAMP expanded to:
211573083848182841
