How to get UTC time in my program?

Dear All,

I am wondering if it is pissible to get the UTC time in my program. Do I need the internet avaibale if I want to get UTC time?

Thanks a lot.

Benson

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

Try this:

dtLCL = datetime('now', 'TimeZone','local')                 % Current Local Time
dtUTC = datetime(dtLCL, 'TimeZone','Z')                     % Current UTC Time

That will give you both the local time and the corresponding UTC time.

.

[Benson Gou]

Hi, Star,

Thanks for your answer.

My computer time is Not accurate, but I want to obtain the accurate UTC time. How can I do it?

Thanks.

Bensen

[Star Strider]

My pleasure.

I have not done this for many years (likely since the early 1990s). However NIST Internet time service , NIST Internet time servers, and NIST TIme Widget are three options.

Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, I had my computer (MS-DOS, early Windows) access those and set my computer clock with them every time I booted it. I wrote my own FORTRAN code to do that (long before I was introduced to MATLAB.) You can probably use the ftp or webread functions (neither of which I have used in the past few years) to get the time. Setting the time may be more of a problem, since I never had to do that in Windows 10 or recent earlier Windows versions. That might require an operating system call.

That is the best I can do.

[Benson Gou]

Hi, Star,

Thanks a lot for your great help.

Benson

[Star Strider]

As always, my pleasure!

[Charalambos Hadjipanayi]

This gives you a simple network time, which does not rely on local computer time:

url_time = webread('http://worldtimeapi.org/api/timezone/Etc/UTC')

Answer 2

[Vini Lima]

utc_time = datetime('now', 'timezone', 'utc')

[Charalambos Hadjipanayi]

This just converts your local computer time to UTC. So if your local computer time is incorrect for any reason, the utc_time will be also incorrect.