Introduction
When you use the Microsoft Automation function VariantTimeToSystemTime
to convert variant time to system time and the SystemTimeToVariantTime
to convert system time to variant time, the milliseconds value appears as zero or is ignored. This is a known issue documented in MSDN knowledge base, under ID Q297463. However, many times, ignoring milliseconds is not a option. Two simple functions wrapping the original API functions can be used to convert SystemTime
to VariantTime
and vice versa without losing the millisecond information.
The sample application is just to demonstrate the use of these functions. You can type in the SystemTime
entries and click convert to see the equivalent VariantTime
or you can type in a VariantTime
value and select conversion Type
for reverse conversion and convert it back to SystemTime
. Clicking on the 'GetCurrentTime
' button will populate SystemTime
structure from the current time on your system. The application also does some basic validations on the range of input you can specify.
Using the Code
Two functions, SystemTimeToVariantTimeWithMilliseconds
and VariantTimeToSystemTimeWithMilliseconds
can replace the Microsoft Automation functions and can return the result in a similar to the original functions without losing the millisecond information.
a) SystemTimeToVariantTimeWithMilliseconds
takes systemtime
as the input and passes the information without millisecond information to the Microsoft Automation function. The result would be the converted variant time without milliseconds. The reason for not passing the millisecond information to the Microsoft Automation function is that the function automatically rounds off the value to the nearest second, which we don't want. We then add the variant portion for the millisecond.
A variant time is stored as an 8-byte real value (double), representing a date between January 1, 1753 and December 31, 2078, inclusive. The value 2.0 represents January 1, 1900; 3.0 represents January 2, 1900, and so on. Adding 1 to the value increments the date by a day. The fractional part of the value represents the time of day. Therefore, 2.5 represents noon on January 1, 1900; 3.25 represents 6:00 A.M. on January 2, 1900, and so on. So, 0.5 represents 12 hours i.e. 12*60*60 seconds, hence 1 second = 0.5/(12*60*60) = .0000115740740740
BOOL CSysTimeConversionDlg::SystemTimeToVariantTimeWithMilliseconds
( SYSTEMTIME st, double *dVariantTime)
{
BOOL retVal = TRUE;
WORD wMilliSeconds = st.wMilliseconds; st.wMilliseconds = 0; double dWithoutms;
retVal = SystemTimeToVariantTime(&st, &dWithoutms) ;
double OneMilliSecond = ONETHOUSANDMILLISECONDS/1000 ;
*dVariantTime = dWithoutms + (OneMilliSecond * wMilliSeconds);
return retVal;
}
b) VariantTimeToSystemTimeWithMilliseconds
takes in the variant time and calculates each component of SYSTEMTIME
individually down to the milliseconds and thus will have the precious millisecond information. We start with using the Microsoft Automation function VariantTimeToSystemTime
to give us the variant time from system time. We delete 0.5 seconds from the original variant time so that we remove the rounding off problem with VariantTimeToSystemTime
function. We then calculate each component of the systemtime
from the fraction until we obtain the millisecond information. Once we have the millisecond information, we then add 0.5 second to compensate for our earlier adjustment.
BOOL CSysTimeConversionDlg::VariantTimeToSystemTimeWithMilliseconds
( double dVariantTime, SYSTEMTIME *st)
{
BOOL retVal = TRUE;
double halfsecond = ONETHOUSANDMILLISECONDS / 2.0;
retVal = VariantTimeToSystemTime(dVariantTime - halfsecond, st);
if (retVal == FALSE)
{
return retVal;
}
double fraction = dVariantTime - (int) dVariantTime;
double hours;
hours = fraction = (fraction - (int)fraction) * 24;
double minutes;
minutes = (hours - (int)hours) * 60;
double seconds;
seconds = (minutes - (int)minutes) * 60;
double milliseconds;
milliseconds = (seconds - (int)seconds) * 1000;
milliseconds = milliseconds + 0.5; if (milliseconds < 1.0 || milliseconds > 999.0) milliseconds = 0;
if (milliseconds)
st->wMilliseconds = (WORD) milliseconds;
else retVal = VariantTimeToSystemTime(dVariantTime, st);
return retVal;
}
License
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I started programming some 10 years back, working on on a 386 PC writing some embedded systems code, but soon moved on into application programming. I have worked on Microsoft environment since the beginning of MSDOS and Windows 3.1. I have had several years of hands on experience with C++, Win32, MFC, ATL COM, Visual Basic and C#
I work IBM Global Services and currently living in Lake Forest California.
Occupation : Software design and development
Other than my work, my special areas of interest is Computer hardware, photography, music and movies.