Re: Epoch Time Conversion

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From: Scott Post (spost_at_mn.rr.com)
Date: 03/21/04 

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 09:03:39 GMT

Dr John Stockton <spam@merlyn.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:a8n6jXJv$3WAFwbp@merlyn.demon.co.uk:

> JRS: In article <a65bdd53.0403190852.5e20c00a@posting.google.com>,
> seen in news:microsoft.public.scripting.vbscript, Scott J Post Sr
> <spost@mn.rr.com> posted at Fri, 19 Mar 2004 08:52:11 :-
>>Epoch Time is a UNIX standard and is measured in seconds from January
>>1, 1970
>>
>>Dr John Stockton <spam@merlyn.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>>news:<UjDJkeFwzbVAFw CP@merlyn.demon.co.uk>...
>
>>> If you were to explain what _you_ mean by Epoch time, and what forms
>>> of conversion interest you, you might get a more detailed answer.
>
> Responses should be placed after trimmed quotes.
>
> You are not the OP, and cannot say whether he is using Epoch in the
> same sense, so your contribution is not particularly helpful. Epochs
> are manifold.
>
> It is also, of course, inexact; the origin of that form of time is
> 1970-01-01 00:00:00 GMT (or UTC) [ MJD 40587.0 ]; the zone information
> is IMPORTANT.
>
> Leap Seconds are disregarded.
>
> Javascript uses that time origin, but measures in milliseconds.
>
> AIUI, VBscript - as used in Web pages - has no knowledge of time zone,
> and works with an origin of local 1899-12-30 00:00:00 Gregorian [ CMJD
> 15018.0 ]; without assistance, the true conversion is therefore not
> possible. A Javascript call can get the current, winter, and summer
> offsets from GMT. In WSH, AIUI, the Registry can be accessed.
>
> In a zone using GMT, the difference between the origins is 25569.0
> days.
>

>From my experience, every time someone is dealing with Epoch time, they
are dealing with some form of UNIX which means that they would be dealing
with that time standard. Thank you for adding the point about it based
on GMT time.

Since the original poster does not seem to care about responding replies
to his original post, you are right -- we don't know if is using it in
the same sense I stated. On the other hand, what to you think is the
probability that he is, hmm?

Try doing a Google search on 'Epoch time conversion' and you will notice
that out of 110,000 hits, almost every single one references the UNIX
time format.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think is the percentage of times that
you worked with Epoch time conversions that did not involve the UNIX
Epoch time?

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