Why does Time Stamp Control not produce a Absolute Time output?

[skalis]

I have used the the Time Stamp Control for manual input of measurement information. However, this control produce a time stamp in relative time which is unwanted. I thought that Time Stamps always are in Absolute Time. Is this not true? The control is very handy for time and date inputs. Is there a way of changing the output to relative time?

[MikeS81]

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skalis wrote: 
... this control produce a time stamp in relative time which is unwanted. ...

Is there a way of changing the output to relative time?

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Hi skalis,

can you please clarify this?

Mike

[skalis]

I will try to be more specific:

There is a Time Stamp Control available in the controls palette for use on the front panel. This can be used to set a variable called Time Stamp with values of time and date. It has a time and date browser which is very convenient to use and I like to use it. The time format I prefer in this case is Absolute Time which is time-zone-independent and it is the number of seconds elapsed since 12:00 a. m., Friday 1, 1904, Universal time according to LabVIEW help. However, the output from the Time Stamp Control is in Relative Time which I think is the Absolute Time compensated with Dayligth Saving Time and the local Time zone setting in your system.

Time Stamps are always in Absolute Time I think but not in this case.

My problem may be solved with a VI similar to "Format Date/Time String Function" but with a time stamp input and output, since this VI converts from Absolute time to Relative time. Even better is of course having a Time Stamp Control where you can select between absolute and relative time.

[tbob]

If you connect the Time Stamp control to the Format Date/Time String function and wire a True constant to the UTC format input, the output will be in UTC format.