View source for Freeside:1.7:Documentation:Dates

== Introduction ==

Freeside stores most dates as "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time Unix time]" - the number of seconds elapsed since midnight UTC on the morning of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds.

== Conversion in Perl ==

* Conversion from UNIX time: see the <code>localtime</code> function or the <code>Date::Format</code> module.

* Conversion to UNIX time: see the <code>Date::Parse</code> or <code>Time::Local</code> modules, among others.

== Conversion in PostgreSQL ==

* Conversion from UNIX time (substitute in your own time zone, date field and output field name): 
<pre><nowiki>
'epoch'::TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE AT TIME ZONE 'PST' + _date_field * '1 second'::INTERVAL AS output_fieldname
</nowiki></pre>

== Conversion in Crystal Reports ==

* Download the [http://www.viksoe.dk/code/u2lwin32.htm U2lwin32 user function library]
* Use the provided "EpochToDateTime" function
* Works with Crystal Reports 11 by manually installing the U2lwin32.dll to Business Objects\Common\3.5\bin