[erlang-questions] microseconds since midnight

[Henning Diedrich]

Thanks for the education.

I was actually looking for something as reliable as now(), i.e. deriving 
the milliseconds since midnight (subj line of post was simplifying) to 
get a relative, reliable four byte sync value to be sent across systems.

I came up with the following. Bearing my original question in mind, 
maybe you can see at a glance if this is safe. Or, since it needs to be 
done often, could be done cheaper. Thanks a lot!

Henning


%% Milliseconds since midnight. ------------------

nightsynctime_offset() ->   
   
    {_, Time_1} = erlang:universaltime(),
    SSMN_1 = calendar:time_to_seconds(Time_1),
    {MegaSec_2, Seconds_2, _} = now(),
    % MidNightOffset =
    (MegaSec_2 * 1000000) + Seconds_2 - SSMN_1.
   
nightsynctime(MidNightOffset) ->

    {MegaSec_3, Seconds_3, MicroSec_3} = now(),
    % NightSyncTime =
    (MegaSec_3 * 1000000 + Seconds_3 - MidNightOffset) * 1000
     + trunc(MicroSec_3 / 1000).
  
%% Test ------------------------------------------------
               
start() ->

    secondtimes(),
    MidNightOffset = nightsynctime_offset(),
    loop(MidNightOffset, 0).

loop(MidNightOffset, LastSync) ->

    SyncTime = nightsynctime(MidNightOffset),
    io:format("~p~n", [SyncTime]),
   
    % test (do in the day, obviously)
    if SyncTime < LastSync -> exit("counting backwards") ; true -> ok end,
   
    timer:sleep(166),
    loop(MidNightOffset, SyncTime).
   
  
Output:

328986
329153
329320
329487
329654
329821
...



Ulf Wiger wrote:
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> Henning Diedrich wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> are now() and universaltime() incrementing their seconds count at the
>> exact same time?
>>
>> So that the seconds from calendar:time_to_seconds(universaltime()) and
>> the microseconds from now() could simply be added up S*1000000+Ms?
>>
>> Or would that risk having the microseconds going back to zero at
>> different times then when the seconds counter is counted up?
>>     
>
> now() is not guaranteed to show accurate wall-clock time. It is
> guaranteed to always increment at least by one microsecond for each
> call. It also normally adjusts its speed by up to 1% if it detects
> a deviation from the system clock. This is to ensure that the
> "real-time clock" of Erlang doesn't suddenly make a big leap in
> time just because some clueless operator changed the system time
> (or the system clock is in a time zone that obeys DST). As
> Erlang timers rely on now(), big leaps can either cause all timers
> to fire at once, or all of them going into deep sleep for a looong
> time, both of which can be equally disastrous.
>
> os:timestamp() looks like a now() object, but reads the system clock,
> and should behave the way you want. This function is a recent
> addition - R13, I think.
>
> BR,
> Ulf W
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