Re: Value of a date in Numbers
Re: Value of a date in Numbers
- Subject: Re: Value of a date in Numbers
- From: Luther Fuller <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:31:49 -0600
On Feb 2, 2009, at 8:41 PM, Michelle Steiner wrote:
value of a cell, when the cell is formated as a time (or date-time)
returns Greenwich Mean Time instead of the local date displayed in
the spreadsheet.
I didn't discover this "feature"; I learned of it from someone
else. But is it a bug or is it as designed?
It does mean that when using that time in other applications, such
as creating an event in iCal, you have to subtract "time to GMT"
from it to get the correct time in the event.
I think this is a feature. (In fact, I would think recording time
locally would be a bug.) Here's why.
The things (files, folders, &c.) on your computer have a date (or two)
associated with them. If you have a portable, these dates may have
been associated with your files in many different time zones. If you
have moved files from other computers onto your computer, the
associated date originates in many different zones.
Dates are mainly used in two ways: to be displayed and to be
calculated. A displayed date should be displayed in the local time
zone. Calculated dates (including date comparison), on the other hand,
need to be independent of any time zone.
In order to avoid always having to convert to some common time zone,
recorded dates should always be in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time,
related to GMT). If you need to compare dates, you just compare them
without having to convert dates.
If you want to display (in a local zone) a date, you will have to do a
conversion.
Dates presented in a Finder Get Info window are displayed in the local
time zone. I don't know if they are recorded in UTC, however. Does
someone know ... ?
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