[Boost-users] Platform independent system time in milliseconds.

From: Barry Andrews (titanandrews_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-12-23 15:41:11

Hi Boost Users,

I am attempting to use the boost library date_time to create a platform 
independent function to get the system time in milliseconds. Basically, I 
need a millisecond precision timing mechanism. I read over the docs and 
looked at the examples from this library and came up with something that I 
thought would work, but it doesn't. :(

ptime time_t_epoch(date(1970,1,1));
time_zone_ptr zone(new posix_time_zone("MST-07"));
local_date_time dt_epoch(time_t_epoch, zone);
                     
time_zone_ptr zone2(new posix_time_zone("MST-07"));
local_date_time ldt = local_microsec_clock::local_time(zone2);
    
time_duration diff = ldt.utc_time() - dt_epoch.utc_time();
       
long milli = diff.total_milliseconds();
    
cout << milli << endl;

What I get is a negative number.

The function I want should have the exact same behavior as 
java.lang.System.currentTimeMillis() which returns "the difference, measured 
in milliseconds, between the current time and midnight, January 1, 1970 UTC."

Is there a way to achieve this with boost? Is so, can someone please give me 
some hints as to how I can do this?

many thanks for your help!

-B