date and time momentjs edition
TRANSCRIPT
DATE AND TIMEOdds, Ends, and Oddities
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Like Git:• Date and time is complicated• At first, we avoid learning date and time
But also, like Git:• Date and time makes sense• Date and time can be fun
5 O'clock Somewhere
PERSPECTIVEWe all see dates and times from different angles
The Global Timeline
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Point in absolute time
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)• A perspective of the global timeline• Allows us to keep track of absolute time• Primary standard by which the world regulates clocks• Defined precisely by scientific community• Includes leap seconds• Has no relationship to geography• Basically the same as GMT, but GMT is not defined precisely by the
scientific community
Local Time• A local time is a perspective of time• It does not represent a point on the global timeline• It is usually not a contiguous timeline (DST)
UTC Time:2016-04-09T14:17:47ZWhat we know• The point in absolute time• Whether this time is before or
after another point in time
What we don’t know• Whether it is morning or night• What day of the week it is
Local Time:Saturday, April 9, 2016 9:11 AM
We Know• It is Saturday• It is morning
We Don’t Know• What point this is on the
global timeline• Whether it is before or after a
time from a different locality• What the time will be if we
add one hour to this time
TIME ZONESUniting Perspectives
Time Zone Basics• A time zone is a region that observes a uniform standard time• A time zone is defined by a set of offsets from UTC• Offsets are typically in one hour intervals, but not always
• Nepal Standard Time is UTC +5:45• Time zones frequently have multiple offsets• There are two main resources for time zones
• Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)• Windows Time Zones
• IANA time zones are more widely used, and more accurate
Time Zone: America/Chicago
Politics• Time zones are inherently political• Governments change time zones regularly• Governments change time zones suddenly• Russia this year is an example of politicians causing time chaos
• http://bit.ly/1SB9TvW• Morocco reverts to standard time during Ramadan• Assume nothing
IANA Time Zone Libraries• JavaScript - Moment TimeZone
• http://momentjs.com/timezone/• .NET – NodaTime
• http://nodatime.org/• Java 8 + - java.time (native)
• Java 7 - JodaTime• See Stack Overflow post for more exhaustive list
• http://bit.ly/1RUYuuM
Time Zones are not Offsets!"2016-04-09T19:39:00-05:00“This date could be in:• America/Chicago• America/Bahia_Banderas• America/Bogata• America/Cancun• America/Cayman• And more
ASSUMPTIONSThings we think we know
Assumption“If you just store everything in UTC, all your problems will be solved.”
A Table With Everything in UTC
Show me all the messages for the business day of April 4th.
I have users in London, and across the United States.
In London April 4th is between 2016-04-03 23:00:00Z and 2016-04-04 22:59:59ZIn Minneapolis April 4th is between 2016-04-04 05:00:00Z and 2016-04-05 04:59:59Z
Perspectives• When storing a date, consider the following perspectives
• Absolute time• Time local to the date’s viewer• Time local to the date’s originator
2016-04-09T20:18:48-05:00
ISO 8601 Format with Offset
Local Date Local Time Offset
Why use ISO 8601 format?• With offset, reflects both local and absolute
perspective• Has unambiguous ordering• Compare this to 4/10/2016• In the US this is April 10th
• In the UK this is October 4th • Helps avoid having to compute local perspective from
absolute during querying• Supported by nearly all modern databases• Databases will automatically order in absolute time
Assumption“If I just store everything in ISO 8601
with an offset, everything will be fine.”
Future Dates• Time zones change over time• In the future, the offset of a scheduled time could change• Store future dates in local time with a time zone
Assumption“There are 24 hours in a day, and 365
days in a year.”
moment('2016-03-12 12:00').add(1, 'day').format('LLL')
"March 13, 2016 12:00 PM"
moment('2016-03-12 12:00').add(24,'hour').format('LLL')
"March 13, 2016 1:00 PM"
moment('2016-02-28').add(365, 'days').format('LLL')"February 27, 2017 12:00 AM"
moment('2016-02-28').add(1, 'year').format('LLL')"February 28, 2017 12:00 AM"
As Seen on Stack Overflowvar startHours = 8;var startMinutes = 30;
var ed = new Date();var endHours = ed.getHours();var endMinutes = ed.getMinutes();
var elapsedMinutes = (endHours * 60 + endMinutes) - (startHours * 60 + startMinutes);
console.log(elapsedMinutes);
Assumption“Time and date math work in the
same way.”
moment('2016-01-01').add(1.5, 'hours').format('LLL')"January 1, 2016 1:30 AM“
moment('2016-01-01').add(1.5, 'days').format('LLL')"January 3, 2016 12:00 AM"
Time Math vs Date MathTime math:• Refers to operations involving hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds• Works by incrementing or decrementing the position on the global timeline by the
number of units in question• Can use fractional units
Date Math:• Refers to all operations larger than hours – days, months, years, quarters, etc.• Works by moving places on the calendar • Cannot be converted to time math• Cannot use fractional units
Assumption“All dates and times exist once in all
time zones”
moment('2016-10-16').format('LLL')
October 16, 2016 1:00 AM
Spring Forward in JavaScript
Fall Back in JavaScript
Samoa• Samoa is very close to the international date line• Samoa found itself trading more frequently with Australia than
America• Samoa switched sides of the international date line• December 30 2011 does not exist in Samoan time
Assumption“The Date object in JavaScript
works.”
var a = new Date('2016-01-01');a.toString();
"Thu Dec 31 2015 18:00:00 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time)"
var a = new Date('1/1/2016');a.toString();
"Fri Jan 01 2016 00:00:00 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time)"
Known JavaScript Date Issues• DST Transitions can go both directions• Months index from zero• No support for time zones other than user’s local time zone and
UTC• Older browsers know only current DST rules• Parsing is implementation specific and basically completely broken
• The spec is a disaster
http://codeofmatt.com/2013/06/07/javascript-date-type-is-horribly-broken/
MOMENT.JSQuality Date and Time in Javascript
Parsing• Consistently parses date values according to your expectations• More than 100 languages supported• Thousands of options for parse-able formats• Parse multiple formats if necessary
moment('2016-12-21T13:25:22').format()"2016-12-21T13:25:22-06:00"
moment('30/04/2016', 'DD/MM/YYYY').format()"2016-04-30T00:00:00-05:00"
moment('February 25, 2016', 'MMMM DD, YYYY').format()"2016-02-25T00:00:00-06:00"
moment('octubre 25, 2016', 'MMMM DD, YYYY', 'es').format()"2016-10-25T00:00:00-05:00"
Formatting• Highly configurable format options• Locale based formatting functions
moment().format('MM/DD/YYYY')"04/26/2016"
moment().format('MMMM D, YYYY hh:mm a')"April 26, 2016 09:26 pm"
moment().format('LLL')"April 26, 2016 9:28 PM"
moment().format('L')"04/26/2016"
moment().locale('en-gb').format('L')"26/04/2016"
moment().locale('ar').format('LLL')" أبريل ٢٦ ٢١: ٢٠١٦نيسان ٣١ "
Sane Math• Add and subtract any unit• StartOf/EndOf• Difference
var a = new Date();a.setDate(a.getDate() - 5);
moment().subtract(5, 'days');
var d = new Date();var diff = d.getDate() - d.getDay() + (day == 0 ? -6:1); d.setDate(diff); d.setHours(0,0,0,0);
moment().startOf('week')
var d1 = new Date();var d2 = new Date(01/01/2016);var months;months = (d2.getFullYear() - d1.getFullYear()) * 12;months -= d1.getMonth() + 1;months += d2.getMonth();var diff = months <= 0 ? 0 : months;
moment().diff('2016-01-01', 'months');
Relative Timemoment().subtract(3, 'months').fromNow()"3 months ago"
moment().subtract(2, 'seconds').fromNow()"a few seconds ago"
moment().add(4, 'hours').locale('tlh').fromNow()"loS rep pIq"
Over 100 locales. This is Klingon.
Time Zones (With Moment TimeZone)
moment.tz('2016-04-25T02:30:00Z', 'America/Los_Angeles').format()"2016-04-24T19:30:00-07:00"
moment.tz('2016-04-25T02:30:00Z', 'Europe/Berlin').format()"2016-04-25T04:30:00+02:00"
IN SUMMARYWe all know what happens when you assume
CONSIDER ALL PERSPECTIVES
DISTINGUISH BETWEEN LOCAL AND ABSOLUTE TIME
REMEMBER, TIME ZONES CHANGE RAPIDLY
STORE FUTURE DATES IN LOCAL TIME
DISTINGUISH BETWEEN DATE MATH AND TIME MATH
DON’T TRUST JAVASCRIPT DATE
USE A QUALITY LIBRARY
MAKE NO ASSUMPTIONS
Be like this guy:
Additional Resources• Date and Time Fundamentals – Matt Johnson, Pluralsight
• https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/date-time-fundamentals• Matt Johnson’s Blog
• http://codeofmatt.com/• Lau Taarnskov’s Blog
• http://www.creativedeletion.com/• NodaTime’s Documentation
• http://nodatime.org/• Time Programming Fundamentals – Greg Miller CPPCon 2015
• http://bit.ly/1SgO3E0• Moment.js
• http://momentjs.com/
About Mewww.maggiepint.com
@maggiepint
https://github.com/maggiepint
https://www.tempworks.com