I am seeking a reliable REST API that can provide world time and time zone information across platforms.
I need the current time as a string. I'd like it to return the result in under a second, regardless of the user's location worldwide.
Among other implementations I want to use this for a consistent countdown timer, to be more accurate than a user's [possibly-inaccurate] computer time. It can be GMT or another time zone, as long as the time zone and offset is specified, like 2012-11-05 16:16:50 EST
.
I would build this API myself, but have concerns of potential latency issues (as well as inelegance) when filtering someone through a whole big software stack like Rails just to return a simple String
.
Excessive latency for users far away from the US east coast would offset the benefit of accuracy that the task requires.
Any suggestions and/or examples are appreciated.
This question is related to
rest
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time
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timezone-offset
This API gives you the current time and several formats in JSON - https://market.mashape.com/parsify/format#time. Here's a sample response:
{
"time": {
"daysInMonth": 31,
"millisecond": 283,
"second": 42,
"minute": 55,
"hour": 1,
"date": 6,
"day": 3,
"week": 10,
"month": 2,
"year": 2013,
"zone": "+0000"
},
"formatted": {
"weekday": "Wednesday",
"month": "March",
"ago": "a few seconds",
"calendar": "Today at 1:55 AM",
"generic": "2013-03-06T01:55:42+00:00",
"time": "1:55 AM",
"short": "03/06/2013",
"slim": "3/6/2013",
"hand": "Mar 6 2013",
"handTime": "Mar 6 2013 1:55 AM",
"longhand": "March 6 2013",
"longhandTime": "March 6 2013 1:55 AM",
"full": "Wednesday, March 6 2013 1:55 AM",
"fullSlim": "Wed, Mar 6 2013 1:55 AM"
},
"array": [
2013,
2,
6,
1,
55,
42,
283
],
"offset": 1362534942283,
"unix": 1362534942,
"utc": "2013-03-06T01:55:42.283Z",
"valid": true,
"integer": false,
"zone": 0
}
TimezoneDb provides a free API: http://timezonedb.com/api
GenoNames also has a RESTful API available to get the current time for a given location: http://www.geonames.org/export/ws-overview.html.
You can use Greenwich, UK if you'd like GMT.
Source: Stackoverflow.com