In my Android app, I would like to retrieve the current date/time (UTC) from some server. Android does have the built-in ability to synchronize the device's date and time with some server but I have found this to be unreliable. Does Google or some other well known service provider provide a simple API that would allow me to retrieve the current date/time? I am not interested in trying to set the date/time on the device (that's not even possible). But I do need to know the correct date in order to perform scheduled tasks that depend on exact dates.
I have seen a device reset its date to something like 1980 when the battery has been removed for an extended period of time and therefore I cannot rely upon the date of the device.
EDIT:
I came across this post:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/13066268/753632
But it requires installing Apache Commons Net. Kind of overkill just to get the time. I don't need to bloat my code more than it already is.
you can refer this link How can I get the "network" time, (from the "Automatic" setting called "Use network-provided values"), NOT the time on the phone?
You could use the calender class, like is explained here, although this uses the time of the device itself. You could also read this it explains how to get the time for the service provider.
I think using the calender and then calculating the UTC time with based on the timezone the phone is in (like this). Because the phone already gets it's time from a server when it is connected to the internet.
I hope this helps.
EDIT: I see you edited your post. So you don't want to use the device time... I think you could look into getting it from the service provider then.
Related
I would like to get the current global time in android, meaning, even if the user changed the system's time, I would like to get the correct time.
How can I do that?
To do that you must first have access to the location of the device.
You can connect through a web service such as:
https://timezonedb.com/
https://www.worldtimeserver.com/
Through its APIs you can know the date and time of the zone in which the device is located. If you need more information on how to read restful or xml file of the web service answer, tell me.
The best solution is:
If you have a server. Make your own web service that verifies that the date and time of the Android device on which your App is running matches that of your server.
This question already has answers here:
How can I ensure in Java that the current local time is correct? [duplicate]
(3 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
How can I get correct day from Android device. Now I have a problem to get the correct day if user is offline. If the user has no internet connection and the user has changed his date in device. How can I get the correct date like whatsapp?
Some ideas? I have already tested get date from location.
update
I want to get correct date regardless of user has changed his date on device and the device is offline.
I assume your goal is to prevent a user from bluffing their date backwards.
Thus extending an otherwise free period of usage?
If so, the answer is simple. Add a sharedpreference that stores the active date whenever the app starts up if the device has internet.
If the device does not have internet, then check your last known sharedpreference usage date and see if the device date is before that. This will at least let you know that they rolled back. Its not perfect, because if they decided not to use your app for a month, then rolled it back before opening, it could still give false positives of looking like they are ok to use it. However, it is very unlikely situation.
The most likely situation is they will open the app, get a warning that their date exceeded usage, and then they will try to cheat by going offline and changing the clock, at this point you already set a flag that they expired, or you know the last usage date. Either way you have the information to prevent usage.
You could also just require internet access for the app to be used, that's what I typically do to avoid being cheated on trials.
If that is not your goal, please elaborate more so we can help you with a better solution for your situation.
I am trying to get time from the device but it returns incorrect time if I change my timezone (Because of the timezone). Is there any way to fetch timezone from the internet so that If a user changes its device timezone it should show the actual real time.
BTW I am using the true time library to get real UTC time.
You can use a publicly available API for this. I use http://ip-api.com/json go thorugh documention before implementation. However if you want you can use other APIs. As I am sure there are many.
This is my first time to ask here on Stackoverflow and I am apparently having a hard time on this one. How could I identify if the user changed the device's date in order to activate a date-based code actions?
I really need to compare the actual date and device date without internet connection.
For example:
When I click this button, it would only open in August 29. Changing the date would allow me to access the function of the button.
You can use a Network Time Protocol. Which provides the network time and date so it can't be tricked by the user changing the phone date.
Google has one open source at: This link
EDIT
Which provides this code as sample:
SntpClient client = new SntpClient();
if (client.requestTime("time.foo.com")) {
long now = client.getNtpTime() + SystemClock.elapsedRealtime() - client.getNtpTimeReference();
}
where it puts time.foo.com you should put time.google.com. You might need a timeout in milliseconds to add to the requestTime(host,timeout_millis) method.
And for NTP server you can use
time.google.com
Provided Here
If you can make sure that when your app is installed it has correct time then, you may implement a listener to know manual clock change and then do what you want to do. Reference: Is there a way to detect when the user has changed the clock time on their device?.
There are 2 more options, one to get time using GPS and other is to get time from Network. Not too sure about the network, it is something NTP related stuff will explore when I get a chance. Let me know about your implementation.
here is what i'am trying to achieve, either one of the two would be ok
Get the date and time from a specific url/website like "www.mywebsite.com"
Get the date and time from my MSSQL Server
either one of the two would be ok, because all i need is to get the same time from the website/server's end, because i'am making an APP Version for the Mobile Website i'am making and i want to show a Clock or Date&Time Reminder in the App
i have no codes working as of now, i tried searching online in search engines and also in stackoverflow but i can't seem to find what i'am looking for, either i'am using the wrong words to search for it or there really isn't any way
the reason why i need the date is because i'am checking when the records inside the database was created and verifying how much time has passed since it was created, it like comparing (CreationDateTime & CurrentDateTime)
i can successfully Display how many hours have passed, i just need the CURRENT PROPER & ACCURATE DATE & TIME of the server :)
I can't help but think this is an XY problem, or at least close to it.
Your client device knows what time it is, because it stays in sync via NTP and whatever network it's attached to (and we already know you're attached to a network because otherwise, this whole thing falls apart). And it knows (or should know) what timezone it's in, so you can translate that to UTC or whatever alternative timezone you might need.
Your server(s) should also be keeping time synced via NTP, so drift between the client and server should be sub-second at worst.
IOW, the time (when corrected to UTC, which all date/time libraries I've used have a method built in to do) will almost always match between your client and server, so why bother with the complexity of "pushing" the current time from server to client?
I'm not seeing why you'd need to do this at all. Have the server tell the client when the reminder is set for, then let the client work out the rest. Anything else would be excessively chatty over the network.
To get the date in the format below, just convert todays date to a string
--07/06/2017
SELECT convert(varchar(10), getdate(), 103)
i have found an alternative answer that works 100% in getting date and time from SERVER instead of URL
SELECT GETDATE() AS CurrentDateAndTime
GETDATE()