Problems with time - asp.net

I coded this snippet to log the users IP and time on my website. It works but something is wrong with the time:
public static void UserLogin(string iPaddress, string uname)
{
DateTime dt = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc(DateTime.Now);
string cet= dt.AddHours(1).ToString("F", new CultureInfo("en-US"));
.....
}
The website is on a server somewhere in UK and to adjust the login time to CET without going too sophisticated, I simply toughth adding the hours difference using (AddHours) but for some reason, and I do not understand why, whatsoever number I put in there "AddHours(1)" will never get added and moreover, right now that is 13:55 at my location in Italy, the time recorder by the method is 1:55 am that is 12 hours behind even if there is no hours added "AddHours(0)".
Some help to understand what is going on in this method will be appreciated. Thanks.

You can convert time between time zones in more controlled way, for example:
DateTime nowutc = DateTime.UtcNow;
var cet = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Central European Standard Time");
var nowcet = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeFromUtc(nowutc, cet);

Related

Was there a change in timezone for ToLocalTime

Currently I'm using ToLocalTime to convert the UTC date received from my backend. Is there a way to setup my ASP.NET Core 3.0 web site to use a specific timezone when calling ToLocalTime (instead of depending on the host region) -- or should I implement my own method/extension to converting to the time I need?
Official documentation of DateTime.ToLocalTime states:
Note that the exact output depends on the current culture and the local time zone of the system on which it is run.
You can use the TimeZoneInfo static method ConvertTimeFromUtc to convert an instance of DateTime (Note: if it's Kind property is Local you'll get an exception!) from Utc to whatever local time you want (Another note: the Kind property of the result is either Utc or Unspecified - depending on the target TimeZoneInfo).
Code example (copied from documentation page):
DateTime timeUtc = DateTime.UtcNow;
try
{
TimeZoneInfo cstZone = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Central Standard Time");
DateTime cstTime = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeFromUtc(timeUtc, cstZone);
Console.WriteLine("The date and time are {0} {1}.",
cstTime,
cstZone.IsDaylightSavingTime(cstTime) ?
cstZone.DaylightName : cstZone.StandardName);
}
catch (TimeZoneNotFoundException)
{
Console.WriteLine("The registry does not define the Central Standard Time zone.");
}
catch (InvalidTimeZoneException)
{
Console.WriteLine("Registry data on the Central Standard Time zone has been corrupted.");
}

Deacticate User based on last login date

Scenario: Deactivate the user whose login date is less than 42 from today. I have an user whose last login date is 1/22/2020(US Date format)/22/1/2020 5:12 pm. Here I wrote a batch apex for deactivating. My code has executed successfully and my batch status is completed but the user record is not deactivating.
Here is the code:
global class User_Deactivation implements Database.Batchable<SObject>
{
dateTime dt = date.today()-42;
public String query = 'SELECT Name, LastLoginDate, Id From User WHERE IsActive = true AND LastLoginDate=:dt ';
global Database.querylocator start(Database.BatchableContext bc)
{
return Database.getQueryLocator(query);
}
global void execute(Database.BatchableContext bc,List<User> scope)
{
List<User> userList = new List<User>();
for(User s:scope)
{
User u =(user)s;
userList.add(u);
}
if(userList.size() > 0)
{
for(User usr : userList)
{
usr.isActive = false;
}
}
update userList;
}
global void finish(Database.BatchableContext bc)
{
AsyncApexJob a = [SELECT Id, Status, NumberOfErrors, JobItemsProcessed, TotalJobItems, CreatedBy.Email
FROM AsyncApexJob
WHERE Id = :BC.getJobId()];
Messaging.SingleEmailMessage mail = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
String[] toAddresses = new String[] {a.CreatedBy.Email};
mail.setToAddresses(toAddresses);
mail.setSubject('Apex Job Status: ' + a.Status);
mail.setPlainTextBody('The batch Apex job processed ' + a.TotalJobItems + ' batches with '+ a.NumberOfErrors + ' failures.');
Messaging.sendEmail(new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage[] { mail });
}
}
please help me out on this
Multiple things you can improve here, where do I begin...
Initialisation(?) piece
dateTime dt = date.today()-42;
String query = 'SELECT Name, LastLoginDate, Id From User WHERE IsActive = true AND LastLoginDate=:dt';
Do you need Date or DateTime match? The way you wrote it it'll match only people who logged in exactly at midnight. System.debug(dt); would say 2020-01-23T00:00:00.000Z. It shouldn't be an equals sign, should be "less than" or "less or equal".
Or even better - you can make it bit more clear what you want to do, bit more "semantic" so the poor guy who's going to maintain it can understand it without extra comments. This reads more natural and uses the SOQL date literals, special "constants" to simplify your logic: SELECT Id, LastLoginDate FROM User WHERE isActive = true AND LastLoginDate != LAST_N_DAYS:42
What is this section of code anyway. It's not really static variables, it's not a constructor... I think it'll behave as a constructor. Be very, very careful with constructors for batches. The state of the class at the end of the constructor gets saved (serialised) and restored every time the class is scheduled to run. It's tempting to put some initialisation code into constructor, maybe read some custom settings, precalculate stuff... But then you'll be in for nasty surprise when admin adds new custom setting and the batch doesn't pick it up. In your case it's even worse, I'd suspect it'll serialise the dt and your today() will be frozen in time, not what you expected. To be safe move all initialisation logic to start()
And I'd even say whoever gave you the requirement didn't think it through. When you make new user they get a link they need to click in next 72h. If they didn't do it (maybe it was sent late Friday and they want to login on Monday) - this thing will dutifully kill their access at Friday night without giving them any chance to login. You need some "grace period". Maybe something like WHERE isActive = true AND (LastLoginDate < :x OR (LastLoginDate = null AND CreatedDate < :x))
start()
Queries in strings work and that's how a lot of batch documentation is written but they are poor practice. Where possible use a compiled query, in brackets. You get minimal improvement in execution (precompiled), you get compile-time warnings when you mess up (better than a runtime error which you might not notice if you don't monitor jobs). And most importantly - if somebody wants to delete a field - SF will detect a dependency and stop him/her. Use return Database.getQueryLocator([SELECT ...]); wherever you can.
execute()
Your scope already is a list of users, why do you do extra casts to User? Why do you add them to a helper list? Why 2 loops?
for(User u : scope){
u.isActive = false;
}
update users;
and you're done?
P.S. Why "global" all over the place?

Determine Time Offset given Olson TZID and local DateTime?

I need to determine Time Offset given Olson TZID of an event and a DateTime of an event.
I suppose I can do it with a help of Noda Time, but I'm new here and need help - an example of actual API call sequence to perform this task.
A few more details of what we're using and doing.
We're running ASP.NET + SQL Server based Web site. Users of our site enter and save events which are happening at various locations. For each event Lat/Long and DateTime with time offset (of that event) are among required fields.
There are various scenarios of data entry, sometimes Lat/Long is entered first, sometimes DateTime is. System allows to determine Lat/Long from an address or a map point. We want Time Offset to be consistent with Lat/Long in most of the cases because we normally expect DateTime being entered as local to that event.
We use SQL Server DateTimeOffset field to store data.
We don't want to depend on third-party web services to determine an offset, but prefer our system to do that.
I'm free to download and use any necessary tools or data. I already downloaded shapefiles from http://efele.net/maps/tz/ and used Shape2SQL http://goo.gl/u7AUy to convert them to SQL Server table with TZIDs and GEOMs.
I know how to get TZID from Lat/Long by querying that table.
What I need, again, is to determine Time Offset from TZID and DateTime.
Thank you for Jon Skeet and Matt Johnson for providing an answer on Noda Time Google Group http://goo.gl/I9unm0. Jon explained how to get Microsoft BCL DateTimeOffset value given Olson TZID and NodaTime LocalDateTime values. Matt pointed to an example of determining if DST is active given ZonedDateTime: What is the System.TimeZoneInfo.IsDaylightSavingTime equivalent in NodaTime?
I'm going to write a blog post summarizing my experience of getting Olson TZID from Lat/Long, parsing DateTime string into LocalDateTime and determining DateTimeOffset. I'll show there how GetTmzIdByLocation(latitude, longitude) and GetRoughDateTimeOffsetByLocation(latitude, longitude) methods work and why I needed both (first method doesn't work for locations on ocean). Once I write this post I'll add a comment here.
Note, that parsing DateTime string in a code below is not optimal yet; as Matt explained in a Google Group post (link above) it's better to use Noda Time tools than BCL. See a related question at http://goo.gl/ZRZ7XP
My current code:
public object GetDateTimeOffset(string latitude, string longitude, string dateTime)
{
var tzFound = false;
var isDST = false;
var tmpDateTime = new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.Now).DateTime;
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(dateTime))
{
try
{
// Note: Looks stupid? I need to throw away TimeZone Offset specified in dateTime string (if any).
// Funny thing is that calling DateTime.Parse(dateTime) would automatically modify DateTime for its value in a system timezone.
tmpDateTime = DateTimeOffset.Parse(dateTime).DateTime;
}
catch (Exception) { }
}
try
{
var tmzID = GetTmzIdByLocation(latitude, longitude);
DateTimeOffset result;
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(tmzID) || tmzID.ToLower() == "uninhabited") // TimeZone is unknown, it's probably an ocean, so we would just return time offest based on Lat/Long.
{
var offset = GetRoughDateTimeOffsetByLocation(latitude, longitude);
result = new DateTimeOffset(tmpDateTime, TimeSpan.FromMinutes(offset * 60)); // This only works correctly if tmpDateTime.Kind = Unspecified, see http://goo.gl/at3Vba
} // A known TimeZone is found, we can adjust for DST using Noda Time calls below.
else
{
tzFound = true;
// This was provided by Jon Skeet
var localDateTime = LocalDateTime.FromDateTime(tmpDateTime); // See Noda Time docs at http://goo.gl/XseiSa
var dateTimeZone = DateTimeZoneProviders.Tzdb[tmzID];
var zonedDateTime = localDateTime.InZoneLeniently(dateTimeZone); // See Noda Time docs at http://goo.gl/AqE8Qo
result = zonedDateTime.ToDateTimeOffset(); // BCL DateTimeOffset
isDST = zonedDateTime.IsDaylightSavingsTime();
}
return new { result = result.ToString(IncidentDateFormat), tzFound, isDST };
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
IMAPLog.LogEvent(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().Name, "", ex);
throw new CustomHttpException("Unable to get timezone offset.");
}
}
An extension method (provided by Matt Johnson) for determining if DST is active What is the System.TimeZoneInfo.IsDaylightSavingTime equivalent in NodaTime?
public static class NodaTimeUtil
{
// An extension method by Matt Johnson - on Stack Overflow at http://goo.gl/ymy7Wb
public static bool IsDaylightSavingsTime(this ZonedDateTime zonedDateTime)
{
var instant = zonedDateTime.ToInstant();
var zoneInterval = zonedDateTime.Zone.GetZoneInterval(instant);
return zoneInterval.Savings != Offset.Zero;
}
}

ASP.NET match users local date and time with the system time

I have some trouble understanding how to match users current date and time with the server time.
Example: let's assume I have a website where users can register themselves. One profile option is that they can select their local time zone. For this there is a drop-down menu from where they can choose the correct time zone. So a user from China will select probably (UTC+08:00) Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Urumqi, another user from Los Angeles will select (UTC-07:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada) (i assume) and a guy from Paris will select (UTC+01:00) Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris.
The web application is running on a server in USA with it's specific time zone ...
Now ... All these users will want to receive an email notification next Friday at 19:00 their local time zone!!!
Here I am lost ... definitely the next Friday at 19:00 is not in the same time for all these users ...
How can I map their profile time zone, so the service running on my site will send the email notification next Friday at 19:00 user's local time zone???
I am at this stage at the moment ... populating the drop down menu with all time zones so users can select their current time zone in their profile.
When the page load's than the dropdown is populated with the time zone:
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ddlUserTimeZone.DataSource = GetTimeZones();
ddlUserTimeZone.DataTextField = "Name";
ddlUserTimeZone.DataValueField = "ID";
ddlUserTimeZone.DataBind();
}
public Collection<TimeZoneItem> GetTimeZones()
{
Collection<TimeZoneItem> timeZones = new Collection<TimeZoneItem>();
foreach (var timeZoneInfo in TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones())
{
timeZones.Add(new TimeZoneItem
{
TimeZoneName = timeZoneInfo.DisplayName,
TimeZoneID = timeZoneInfo.Id
});
}
return timeZones;
}
public struct TimeZoneItem
{
public string TimeZoneName { get; set; }
public string TimeZoneID { get; set; }
}
Now, can you guys help with the matching of the profile time zone with the current time so the email is sent in the correct time?
Thanks in advance!
Are you just setting up this service? If so, run your web servers and database servers on Universal Time Coordinated (UTC or Zulu) time, not a local time zone. Everything is far easier to manage if you do that. I learned this the hard way.
UTC used to be called Greenwich Mean Time; it is timezone +00:00. It doesn't change for daylight savings time like US and European local time does.
This time zone thing is a pain, and worth getting right. Some countries have half-hour time zones.
At any rate, once you know each user's preferred time zone, and the time she wants her notification, you can then convert the time from local to UTC and store it.
Try something like this to get the user's hour and minute into UTC. (Time zone conversions need a date, because they depend on daylight savings time rules. There's one more complication. On the day when a time zone switches from daylight to standard, or vice versa, the UTC time for a notification will change. Most people handle this by recomputing the UTC date and time of the next notification (tomorrow's notification) as they send each notification. Consider this code.
TimeZoneInfo userLocal = ;//user's time zone
int hour = ;//whatever the user wants
int minute = ;//whatever the user wants
DateTime tomorrow = DateTime.Now.AddDays(1);
int year = tomorrow.Year;
int month = tomorrow.Month;
int day = tomorrow.Day;
DateTime notificationTime = new DateTime(year,month,day,
hour,minute,0,
DateTimeKind.Unspecified);
DateTime tomorrowNotificationTime = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc(
notificationTime,userLocal);
This should get you the UTC time you need to deliver this user's notification tomorrow, in the correct time zone for tomorrow's date.
DateTime should ideally be stored on the server in UTC format.
You have the following data on your server
Timezone info of the user.
The time at which the user needs the notification.
The current local time on your server.
// Convert current local server time to UTC.
var serverUtc = DateTime.UtcNow;
// Convert UTC time to users local time. This gives you the date and time as per the user.
var userTimeZone = TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones()[0]; // just an example. Replace with actual value.
var userCurrentTime = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(serverUtc, userTimeZone);
/*
add a day to userCurrentTime till its Friday. Add/subtract minutes till its 7:00PM.
*/
var expectedNotificationTimeUtc = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc(userCurrentTime, userTimeZone);
/*
1. store the expectedNotificationTimeUtc as the time you want to send the email.
2. your service can check for users their expectedNotificationTimeUtc and
if the UtcNow is within an acceptable range of the that time, send the email.
*/

In Flex, is there a way to determine how long an HTTPService.send() call takes round-trip?

I am looking to find out and track how long a round-trip to the server is taking. Just kinda curious more than anything.
set up a couple variables and store the time right before the .send() is called in one and store the time at the beginning of the result function in another. The difference of those times should be your total time to get the data.
EDIT: I had to do this today to see how long a function was running.
I declared this
private var start:Number = 0;
private var end:Number = 0;
This at the beginning of what I was timing
start = new Date().time;
This at the end of it
end = new Date().time;
Alert.show((end-start).toString());

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