Free Rest API to retrieve current datetime as string timezone irrelevant

Question

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

If you re using Rails  you can just make an empty file in the public folder and use ajax to get that  Then parse the headers for the Date header  Files in the Public folder bypass the Rails stack  and so have lower latency

[rest] Free Rest API to retrieve current datetime as string (timezone irrelevant)

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