Could you please tell me the time? [closed]

Question

You know that your language's clock/time API's are broken and they are not reliable at all.

So you are not allowed to use any built-in API to access system time/date.

But you also know that your language's ability to perform date math, and retaining a date/time value in a variable are correct.

Write a program that prints the current date/time without calling any date/time/clock API's. For example DateTime.Now, GetDate() and similar functions are not allowed.

The answer with most upvotes wins.

In case of a tie, the answer with more precision wins (that is, accurate up to seconds, then milliseconds, then microseconds, and so on).

Answer 1

HTML

Pure HTML, no Javascript or anything. Less is more.

<title>Time</title>
<iframe src="http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time/scripts/clock-8/runner.php"></iframe>

jsFiddle

Answer 2

Python in a linux xterm

import os
n=os.stat('/dev/ptmx')[7]
n,s=divmod(n,60)
n,m=divmod(n,60)
n,h=divmod(n,24)
y,d=divmod(n,365)
print "It is {}:{}:{} GMT on the {}th day of {}".format(
    h,m,s,d-(y/4-1),y+1970)

/dev/ptmx/ has its timestamp updated every time the xterm is written to, which includes the command invocation.

Answer 3

CPython

gettime.py:

import struct
import gettime

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print struct.unpack('i', open('gettime.pyc').read()[4:8])[0], 'seconds after Unix epoch'

The self-import statement compiles it to a .pyc file, which contains the timestamp as the second 4-byte word.

Doesn't work multiple times in a row unless you change the .py file or delete the .pyc file.

Answer 4

Groovy

def latLong = "http://www.ipligence.com/geolocation".toURL().text =~ /GLatLng\(([^)]*)/
def lat= latLong[0][1].tokenize(",")[0].trim()
def lng = latLong[0][1].tokenize(",")[1].trim()
def xml = "http://www.earthtools.org/timezone/${lat}/${lng}".toURL().text
println new XmlSlurper().parseText(xml).localtime

Get latitude and longitude by IP address, then make a Http request to a time server via the latitude and longitude.

Answer 5

Wolfram Language

WolframAlpha["now", {{"Result", 1}, "Plaintext"}]

> 11:15:35 pm MSK  |  Monday, March 10, 2014