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localtime - script and chart function

This function returns a timestamp of the current time from the system clock for a specified time zone.

Syntax:  

LocalTime([timezone [, ignoreDST ]])

Return data type: dual

LocalTime arguments
Argument Description
timezone

The timezone is specified as a string containing any of the geographical places listed under Time Zone in the Windows Control Panel for Date and Time or as a string in the form 'GMT+hh:mm'. A list of accepted places and time zones is also presented in the table below.

If no time zone is specified, the local time is returned.

Information noteIf you use a DST offset (that is, you specify an ignoreDST argument value evaluating to False), you must specify a place, rather than a GMT offset, in the place argument. This is because adjusting for Daylight Saving Time requires latitudinal information in addition to the longitudinal information provided by a GMT offset. For more information, see Using GMT offsets in combination with DST.
ignoreDST

If this argument evaluates to True, DST (daylight saving time) is ignored. Valid argument values evaluating to True include -1 and True().

If this argument evaluates to False, the timestamp is adjusted for daylight saving time. Valid argument values evaluating to False include 0 and False().

If the ignoreDST argument value is invalid, the function evaluates the expression as if the ignore_dst value evaluates to True. If the ignoreDST argument value is not specified, the function evaluates the expression as if the ignore_dst value evaluates to False.

Valid places and time zones
A-C D-K L-R S-Z
Abu Dhabi Darwin La Paz Samoa
Adelaide Dhaka Lima Santiago
Alaska Eastern Time (US & Canada) Lisbon Sapporo
Amsterdam Edinburgh Ljubljana Sarajevo
Arizona Ekaterinburg London Saskatchewan
Astana Fiji Madrid Seoul
Athens Georgetown Magadan Singapore
Atlantic Time (Canada) Greenland Mazatlan Skopje
Auckland Greenwich Mean Time : Dublin Melbourne Sofia
Azores Guadalajara Mexico City Solomon Is.
Baghdad Guam Mid-Atlantic Sri Jayawardenepura
Baku Hanoi Minsk St. Petersburg
Bangkok Harare Monrovia Stockholm
Beijing Hawaii Monterrey Sydney
Belgrade Helsinki Moscow Taipei
Berlin Hobart Mountain Time (US & Canada) Tallinn
Bern Hong Kong Mumbai Tashkent
Bogota Indiana (East) Muscat Tbilisi
Brasilia International Date Line West Nairobi Tehran
Bratislava Irkutsk New Caledonia Tokyo
Brisbane Islamabad New Delhi Urumqi
Brussels Istanbul Newfoundland Warsaw
Bucharest Jakarta Novosibirsk Wellington
Budapest Jerusalem Nuku'alofa West Central Africa
Buenos Aires Kabul Osaka Vienna
Cairo Kamchatka Pacific Time (US & Canada) Vilnius
Canberra Karachi Paris Vladivostok
Cape Verde Is. Kathmandu Perth Volgograd
Caracas Kolkata Port Moresby Yakutsk
Casablanca Krasnoyarsk Prague Yerevan
Central America Kuala Lumpur Pretoria Zagreb
Central Time (US & Canada) Kuwait Quito -
Chennai Kyiv Riga -
Chihuahua - Riyadh -
Chongqing - Rome -
Copenhagen - - -

Examples and results:  

The examples below are based on the function being called on 2023-08-14 08:39:47 local time, with the local time zone of the server or desktop environment being GMT-05:00, and in a region which has implemented daylight saving time as of this listed date.

Scripting examples
Example Result

localtime ()

Returns the local time 2023-08-14 08:39:47.

localtime ('London')

Returns the local time in London, 2023-08-14 13:39:47.

localtime ('GMT+02:00')

Returns the local time in the timezone of GMT+02:00, 2023-08-14 14:39:47. No adjustment is made for daylight saving time because a GMT offset, rather than a place, is specified.

localtime ('Paris',-1)

Returns the local time in Paris with daylight savings time ignored, 2023-08-14 13:39:47.

localtime ('Paris',True())

Returns the local time in Paris with daylight savings time ignored, 2023-08-14 13:39:47.

localtime ('Paris',0)

Returns the local time in Paris, taking daylight savings time into account, 2023-08-14 14:39:47.

localtime ('Paris',False())

Returns the local time in Paris, taking daylight savings time into account, 2023-08-14 14:39:47.

Using GMT offsets in combination with DST

Following the implementation of International Components for Unicode (ICU) libraries in QlikView November 2018, the use of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) offsets in combination with DST (Daylight Saving Time) requires additional latitudinal information.

GMT is a longitudinal (east-west) offset, whereas DST is a latitudinal (north-south) offset. For example, Helsinki (Finland) and Johannesburg (South Africa) share the same GMT+02:00 offset, but they do not share the same DST offset. This means that, further to the GMT offset, any DST offset requires information on the latitudinal position of the local time zone (geographical time zone input) in order to have full information about local DST conditions.

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