Changeing timezone in crystal reports

I have a data source that is in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) and iam in the CET (Central European Time) timezone. So a need too change this time to the relevant timezone so that the data can be understood.

For example if some one is adding a post to the database in 1300 CET, the database says 1200 UTC and when the report is created it says that the post was created 1200 and the reader thinks that this is in CET.

So you can do it litke this:

local datetimevar x:=*Some Date*;
DateTime (YEAR(x), Month(x), day(x), hour(x)+1, minute(x), second(x))

But there is a problem with this approach and that is when is summer time we have Daylight savings so CET (Central European Time) becomes CEST (Central European Summer Time). So CET is +1h to UTC

So a better way to do this is to do it like this:

local datetimevar x:=*Some Date*;
ShiftDateTime (DateTime (YEAR(x), Month(x), day(x), hour(x), minute(x), second(x)), "CET,-60,CEST,0", "")

Explaining the syntax

ShiftDateTime shifts a DateTime value from one time zone to another time zone.

ShiftDateTime (inputDateTime, inputTimeZone, newTimeZone)

inputDateTime: a DateTime value to be shifted.
inputTimeZone: a “TimeZoneString” representing the time zone of the inputDateTime.
newTimeZone: a “TimeZoneString” representing the time zone to which the inputDateTime is shifted

The last empty string in my example indicates the local time zone is taken from the OS settings.

My TimeZoneString is constructed like this:
CET = String name of the standard time zone (eg Central European Time).
-60 = Offset, in minutes, of the standard time zone (CET is -1 hence -60 minutes).
CEST = String name of the DST time zone (eg Central European Summer Time).
0 = Optional DST offset from standard, defaults to one hour ahead of standard offset.

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Matt Johnson

The string you provided is invalid. By specifying 0 as the fourth argument, it will not change the time when CEST is in effect. And unless you want to obey US rules for daylight savings time, you need to provide additional arguments. For CET, it would be “CET,-60,CEST,-60;3.5.0/02:00,10.5.0/03:00”
- bogge
  
  Thanks for the feedback and you are correct. I will correct the post with your input. But i also saw another problem, so the most correct way to convert UTC to CEST should be like this:
  
  local datetimevar x:=#2013-07-10 08:30:00#;
  ShiftDateTime (DateTime (YEAR(x), Month(x), day(x), hour(x), minute(x), second(x)), “UTC,0”, “CET,-60,CEST,-60;3.5.0/02:00,10.5.0/03:00”)
  
  This returns 2013-07-10 10:30:00, today on this glorious summer day.
  
  Do you agree?
Matt Johnson

The string you provided is invalid. By specifying 0 as the fourth argument, it will not change the time when CEST is in effect. And unless you want to obey US rules for daylight savings time, you need to provide additional arguments. For CET, it would be “CET,-60,CEST,-60;3.5.0/02:00,10.5.0/03:00”