14.6 Time
On this page:
current-seconds
seconds->date
date
date*
current-milliseconds
current-inexact-milliseconds
current-process-milliseconds
current-gc-milliseconds
time-apply
time
14.6.1 Date Utilities
current-date
date->string
date-display-format
date->seconds
find-seconds
date->julian/ scalinger
julian/ scalinger->string

14.6 Time

Returns the current time in seconds. This time is always an exact integer based on a platform-specific starting date (with a platform-specific minimum and maximum value).

The value of (current-seconds) increases as time passes (increasing by 1 for each second that passes). The current time in seconds can be compared with a time returned by file-or-directory-modify-seconds.

(seconds->date secs-n [local-time?])  date?
  secs-n : real?
  local-time? : any/c = #t
Takes secs-n, a platform-specific time in seconds returned by current-seconds, current-inexact-milliseconds, or file-or-directory-modify-seconds, and returns an instance of the date* structure type. If secs-n is too small or large, the exn:fail exception is raised.

The resulting date reflects the time according to the local time zone if local-time? is #t, otherwise it reflects a date in UTC.

The value returned by current-seconds or file-or-directory-modify-seconds is not portable among platforms. Convert a time in seconds using seconds->date when portability is needed.

(struct date (second
    minute
    hour
    day
    month
    year
    week-day
    year-day
    dst?
    time-zone-offset)
  #:extra-constructor-name make-date
  #:transparent)
  second : (integer-in 0 61)
  minute : (integer-in 0 59)
  hour : (integer-in 0 23)
  day : (integer-in 1 31)
  month : (integer-in 1 12)
  year : exact-integer?
  week-day : (integer-in 0 6)
  year-day : (integer-in 0 365)
  dst? : boolean?
  time-zone-offset : exact-integer?
Represents a date. For the second field, values of 60 and 61 are for unusual, but possible for leap-seconds. The year-day field reaches 365 only in leap years.

The dst? field is #t if the date reflects a daylight-saving adjustment. The time-zone-offset field reports the number of seconds east of UTC (GMT) for the current time zone (e.g., Pacific Standard Time is -28800), including any daylight-saving adjustment (e.g., Pacific Daylight Time is -25200). When a date record is generated by seconds->date with #f as the second argument, then the dst? and time-zone-offset fields are #f and 0, respectively.

The date constructor accepts any value for dst? and converts any non-#f value to #t.

The value produced for the time-zone-offset field tends to be sensitive to the value of the TZ environment variable, especially on Unix platforms; consult the system documentation (usually under tzset) for details.

See also the racket/date library.

(struct date* date (nanosecond time-zone-name)
  #:extra-constructor-name make-date*)
  nanosecond : (integer-in 0 999999999)
  time-zone-name : (and/c string? immutable?)
Extends date with a time zone name, such as "MDT", "Mountain Daylight Time", or "UTC".

When a date* record is generated by seconds->date with #f as the second argument, then the time-zone-name field is "UTC".

The date* constructor accepts a mutable string for time-zone-name and converts it to an immutable one.

Returns the current “time” in fixnum milliseconds (possibly negative). This time is based on a platform-specific starting date or on the machine’s start-up time. Since the result is a fixnum, the value increases only over a limited (though reasonably long) time.

Returns the current time in milliseconds since midnight UTC, January 1, 1970. The result may contain fractions of a millisecond.

Example:

> (current-inexact-milliseconds)

1289513737015.418

In this example 1289513737015 is in milliseconds and 418 is in microseconds.

(current-process-milliseconds thread)  exact-integer?
  thread : (or/c thread? #f)
Returns an amount of processor time in fixnum milliseconds that has been consumed by the Racket process on the underlying operating system. (On Unix and Mac OS X, this includes both user and system time.) If thread is #f, the reported time is for all Racket threads, otherwise the result is specific to the time while thread ran. The precision of the result is platform-specific, and since the result is a fixnum, the value increases only over a limited (though reasonably long) time.

Returns the amount of processor time in fixnum milliseconds that has been consumed by Racket’s garbage collection so far. This time is a portion of the time reported by (current-process-milliseconds), and is similarly limited.

Collects timing information for a procedure application.

Four values are returned: a list containing the result(s) of applying proc to the arguments in lst, the number of milliseconds of CPU time required to obtain this result, the number of “real” milliseconds required for the result, and the number of milliseconds of CPU time (included in the first result) spent on garbage collection.

The reliability of the timing numbers depends on the platform. If multiple Racket threads are running, then the reported time may include work performed by other threads.

(time expr)
Reports time-apply-style timing information for the evaluation of expr directly to the current output port. The result is the result of expr.

14.6.1 Date Utilities

The bindings documented in this section are provided by the racket/date library, not racket/base or racket.

An abbreviation for (seconds->date (current-seconds)).

(date->string date [time?])  string?
  date : date?
  time? : any/c = #f
Converts a date to a string. The returned string contains the time of day only if time?. See also date-display-format.

(date-display-format)  
(or/c 'american
      'chinese
      'german
      'indian
      'irish
      'iso-8601
      'rfc2822
      'julian)
(date-display-format format)  void?
  format : 
(or/c 'american
      'chinese
      'german
      'indian
      'irish
      'iso-8601
      'rfc2822
      'julian)
Parameter that determines the date string format. The initial format is 'american.

(date->seconds date [local-time?])  exact-integer?
  date : date?
  local-time? : any/c = #f
Finds the representation of a date in platform-specific seconds. The time-zone-offset field of date is ignored; the date is assumed to be in local time by default or in UTC if local-time? is #f. If the platform cannot represent the specified date, an error is signaled, otherwise an integer is returned.

(find-seconds second    
  minute    
  hour    
  day    
  month    
  year    
  [local-time?])  exact-integer?
  second : (integer-in 0 61)
  minute : (integer-in 0 59)
  hour : (integer-in 0 23)
  day : (integer-in 1 31)
  month : (integer-in 1 12)
  year : exact-nonnegative-integer?
  local-time? : any/c = #t
Finds the representation of a date in platform-specific seconds. The arguments correspond to the fields of the date structure—in local time by default or UTC if local-time? is #f. If the platform cannot represent the specified date, an error is signaled, otherwise an integer is returned.

(date->julian/scalinger date)  exact-integer?
  date : date?
Converts a date structure (up to 2099 BCE Gregorian) into a Julian date number. The returned value is not a strict Julian number, but rather Scalinger’s version, which is off by one for easier calculations.

(julian/scalinger->string date-number)  string?
  date-number : exact-integer?
Converts a Julian number (Scalinger’s off-by-one version) into a string.