Date Handling in the SoftLayer API

Most of the data presented in the SoftLayer API is date-sensitive. Servers have provision dates, tickets have modify dates, and nearly everything has a creation date. To maintain compliancy and consistency standards for all of our users worldwide, SoftLayer presents its dates in [http://www.iso.org/iso/date_and_time_format ISO 8601] format under the data type ‘‘dateTime’’. ISO 8601 represents a complete date including date, time and time zone. Every data type property in the SoftLayer API that ends with the string “Date” is represented by the ‘‘dateTime’’ format.

The dateTime Datatype

The dateTime data type uses the following format: <YYYY>-<MM>-<DD>T<HH>:<MM>:<SS>-<TZ>

For example the dateTime value '2007-07-19T15:21:48-05:00' translates to: July 19, 2007, 3:21:48 P.M., GMT -0500

Refer to the information below for more information regarding the data represented in the dateTime data type:

• YYYY: A four digit representation of the year
• MM: A two digit representation of the month, including a leading zero, if applicable. (Acceptable range of 01 to 12)
• DD: A two digit representation of the day, including a leading zero, if applicable. (Acceptable range of 01 to 31)
• HH: A two digit representation of the hour in 24-hour format, including a leading zero, if applicable. (Acceptable range of 00 to 23)
• MM: A two digit representation of the minute, including a leading zero, if applicable. (Acceptable range of 00-59)
• SS: A two digit representation of the second, including a leading zero, if applicable. (Acceptable range of 00-59)
• TZ: The time zone, represented as the different between the current time zone and GMT in +/-HH:MM format.

Setting Your Time Zone

If your API calls return incorrect times for your location, you likely need to set (or reset) the time zone and/or Daylight Savings Time options for the user making API calls.

Data in the API is centric to the Central time zone (CST/CDT). Which means that unless you specify a timezone in your request, CST/CDT will be assumed.

API

To set your user’s time zone using a direct API call, complete the following steps:

• Make an api call to SoftLayer_User_Customer::editObject
• Set the timeZoneId property in the template object passed to the call Note: Retrieve a list of time zones from[SoftLayer_Locale_Timezone::getAllObjects
• Determine if Daylight Savings Time should be active for the user Note: The system defaults to an active Daylight Savings Time return
• If Daylight Savings Time should be active for the user enter 1 under the daylightSavingsTimeFlag property
• If Daylight Savings Time should be inactive for the user enter 0under the daylightSavingsTimeFlag property

External Links

ISO 8601 Format