Getting Time (& date) from the internet into blitz

Community Forums/General Help/Getting Time (& date) from the internet into blitz

Matty (Posted 2010) [#1]

Good Morning, Is it possible, with either blitz(plus) to get the time and date from an internet website, preferably with times from all over the world? While I could just use the system time plus / minus 'x' hours/minutes for different regions that would not give me any indication of daylight savings or other time adjustments.

markcw (Posted 2010) [#2]

Is this what you mean? http://www.codeproject.com/KB/vb/daytime.aspx

BlitzSupport (Posted 2010) [#3]

This site allows you to send a string requesting the date in certain formats -- don't know how reliable it is, how long it'll be there, etc... Using their first example (see download$ below), this will download a text file containing the current time to "Unknown file.txt" in your Windows Temp folder -- see their site for other ways to get the time. It'd be better in BlitzMax since you can read the stream without having to save the file first. ; Hacked out of Code Archives: ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; BlitzGet Deluxe -- based on Mark Sibly's HTTPGet code... ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; WARNING: WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING FILES OF THE SAME NAME! ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; To do: ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; ; NEED TO CHECK FOR CUTOFFS and... gulp... RESUME? Currently keeps d/l'ing ; nothing if the download is aborted by the server, until the full byte-count ; has been "downloaded"... maybe I'll just say "d/l bombed out" for now...! :) ; ; Parse headers for: ; 404 ; ; More to come... ; ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Quick demo... downloads to your Windows "Temp" folder ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- AppTitle "BlitzGet Deluxe" Graphics 640, 480, 0, 2 SetBuffer BackBuffer () download$ = "http://www.timeapi.org/utc/now/" ; SAVE LOCATION: Windows Temp folder: downloadDir$ = SystemProperty ("TempDir") ; "G:\My Documents\Downloads\" If BlitzGet (download$, downloadDir$, "") result$ = "Download Complete!" + Chr (10) + "Saved in " + downloadDir$ Else result$ = "Download error!" EndIf RuntimeError result$ ; Temporary, for quick results... Global header$ Global bytesToRead Global date$ Global server$ Global contentType$ Global initialReply$ ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; File download function ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; webFile$ -- file to download ; saveDir$ -- directory to download into ; saveFile$ -- filename to save as (use "" to use name of downloaded file automatically) ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Note that if you just provide a web server address, the document downloaded will ; be named "Unknown file.txt" ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Function BlitzGet (webFile$, saveDir$, saveFile$) ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Strip "http://" if provided ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If Left (webFile$, 7) = "http://" Then webFile$ = Right (webFile$, Len (webFile$) - 7) ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Split into hostname and path/filename to download ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- slash = Instr (webFile$, "/") If slash webHost$ = Left (webFile$, slash - 1) webFile$ = Right (webFile$, Len (webFile$) - slash + 1) Else webHost$ = webFile$ webFile$ = "/" EndIf ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Add trailing slash to download dir if not given ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If Right (saveDir$, 1) <> "\" Then saveDir$ = saveDir$ + "\" ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Save filename -- get from webFile$ if not provided ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If saveFile$ = "" If webFile = "/" saveFile$ = "Unknown file.txt" Else For findSlash = Len (webFile$) To 1 Step - 1 testForSlash$ = Mid (webFile$, findSlash, 1) If testForSlash$ = "/" saveFile$ = Right (webFile$, Len (webFile$) - findSlash) Exit EndIf Next If saveFile$ = "" Then saveFile$ = "Unknown file.txt" EndIf EndIf ; DEBUG ; RuntimeError "Web host: " + webHost$ + Chr (10) + "Web file: " + webFile$ + Chr (10) + "Save dir: " + saveDir$ + Chr (10) + "Save file: " + saveFile$ www = OpenTCPStream (webHost$, 80) If www WriteLine www, "GET " + webFile$ + " HTTP/1.1" ; GET / gets default page... WriteLine www, "Host: " + webHost$ WriteLine www, "User-Agent: BlitzGet Deluxe" WriteLine www, "Accept: */*" WriteLine www, "" ; --------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Find blank line after header data, where the action begins... ; --------------------------------------------------------------------- Repeat Cls header$ = ReadLine (www) reply$ = "" pos = Instr (header$, ": ") If pos reply$ = Left (header$, pos + 1) EndIf Select Lower (reply$) Case "content-length: " bytesToRead = ReplyContent (header$, reply$) Case "date: " date$ = ReplyContent (header$, reply$) Case "server: " server$ = ReplyContent (header$, reply$) Case "content-type: " contentType$ = ReplyContent (header$, reply$) Default If gotReply = 0 Then initialReply$ = header$: gotReply = 1 End Select DisplayResponse () Flip Until header$ = "" Or (Eof (www)) If bytesToRead = 0 Then Goto skipDownLoad ; --------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Create new file to write downloaded bytes into ; --------------------------------------------------------------------- save = WriteFile (saveDir$ + saveFile$) If Not save Then Goto skipDownload ; --------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Incredibly complex download-to-file routine... ; --------------------------------------------------------------------- For readWebFile = 1 To bytesToRead If Not Eof (www) Then WriteByte save, ReadByte (www) ; Call BytesReceived with position and size every 100 bytes (slows down a LOT with smaller updates) tReadWebFile = readWebFile If tReadWebFile Mod 100 = 0 Then BytesReceived (readWebFile, bytesToRead) Next CloseFile save ; Fully downloaded? If (readWebFile - 1) = bytesToRead success = 1 EndIf ; Final update (so it's not rounded to nearest 100 bytes!) BytesReceived (bytesToRead, bytesToRead) .skipDownload CloseTCPStream www Else RuntimeError "Failed to connect" EndIf Return success End Function ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; User-defined update function, called every 100 bytes of download -- alter to suit! ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; TIP: Pass a user-defined type instead, with all data (this stuff plus URL, local filename, etc) ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Function BytesReceived (posByte, totalBytes) ; Example update code... Cls Text 0, 10, "Downloading file -- please wait..." Text 0, 30, "Received: " + posByte + "/" + totalBytes + " bytes (" + Percent (posByte, totalBytes) + "%)" DisplayResponse () Flip End Function ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Handy percentage function ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Function Percent (part#, total#) Return Int (100 * (part / total)) End Function Function ReplyContent$ (header$, reply$) Return Right (header$, Len (header$) - Len (reply$)) End Function ; Temporary, for quick results... Function DisplayResponse () Text 0, 80, "Header: " + initialReply$ Text 0, 100, "Date: " + date$ Text 0, 120, "Server: " + server$ Text 0, 140, "Content-Type: " + contentType$ Text 0, 160, "Content-Length: " + bytesToRead End Function A Google for 'time api' should turn up similar ways to get the time.

Matty (Posted 2010) [#4]

Thanks very much.. I will try those solutions out and see how I go.