On Fri, 30 Apr 2021, Tilmann Faul writes: > Dear Jeff, > > Thanks for your answer. > Sys.timezone() gives > [1] "Europe/Berlin" > I tried "Europe/Berlin" as tz argument, giving the same result als using > "CEST" (Central European Summer Time). > It seems to me, that using as.POSIXct without tz argument defaults to tz > UTC and with tz argument, either "CEST" or "Europ/Berlin" uses the > European tz, regarding the plot. > Never the less i do not understand why all of them have the same time > printout on my system. > > as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00", tz="CEST") > # [1] "2021-04-21 CEST" > as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00", tz="Europ/Berlin") > # [1] "2021-04-21 Europ" > as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00") > # [1] "2021-04-21 CEST" > > Can someone comment on that, please? > > best Regards > Tilmann
Timezone names in general are not portable (i.e. not safe to use). You may always specify a timezone name, but it may be ignored: as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00", tz = "PartyTime") ## "2021-04-21 PartyTime" So just because your system prints "CEST", it does not mean it has recognised it as a timezone. (To make it even more complicated: your system may display a time as "CEST", meaning a time in Central European Summer Time, but still not accept "CEST" as _input_ for a timezone name.) 'POSIXct' represents time as a number (seconds since 1970). To compare the results of different calls, it is easier to compare those numbers. dput(as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00", tz="CEST")) ## structure(1618963200, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"), tzone = "CEST") dput(as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00", tz="PartyTime")) ## structure(1618963200, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"), tzone = "PartyTime") dput(as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00", tz="Europe/Berlin")) ## structure(1618956000, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"), tzone = "Europe/Berlin") dput(as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00")) ## structure(1618956000, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"), tzone = "") So in your case, "CEST" is (most likely) not recognised as a valid input for a timezone name, and hence it is ignored, but still displayed. HTH Enrico > On 29.04.21 23:19, Jeff Newmiller wrote: >> What is your TZ environment variable set to? That's what time conversion >> defaults to ?DateTimeClasses >> >> Also, I am not sure CEST is a valid timezone designation... it can be system >> dependent, but using one of the elements listed in ?OlsonNames. >> >> On April 29, 2021 12:22:44 PM PDT, Tilmann Faul <tilmann_f...@t-online.de> >> wrote: >>> Hy, >>> >>> stumbled over the following problem while plotting DateTime Objects. >>> >>> plot(as.POSIXct(c("2021-04-21 00:00:00", "2021-04-21 23:59:59")), c(0, >>> 1), type='l') >>> >>> arrows(as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00", tz="CEST"), >>> 0.3, >>> as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00", tz="CEST"), >>> 0.2, >>> length=0.07, angle=15) >>> >>> # arrow at 02:00, why? >>> >>> arrows(as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00"), >>> 0.3, >>> as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00"), >>> 0.2, >>> length=0.07, angle=15, col='red') >>> >>> # arrow at 00:00 as expected >>> >>> as.POSIXct(c("2021-04-21 00:00:00", "2021-04-21 23:59:59"))[1] >>> # [1] "2021-04-21 CEST" >>> as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00", tz="CEST") >>> # [1] "2021-04-21 CEST" >>> as.POSIXct("2021-04-21 00:00:00") >>> # [1] "2021-04-21 CEST" >>> >>> all representations on my system are the same, why is the plot location >>> of the arrows different?? >>> I am located in Germany, my locale: >>> Sys.getlocale() >>> [1] >>> "LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=de_DE.UTF-8;LC_COLLATE=de_DE.UTF-8;LC_MONETARY=de_DE.UTF-8;LC_MESSAGES=de_DE.UTF-8;LC_PAPER=de_DE.UTF-8;LC_NAME=C;LC_ADDRESS=C;LC_TELEPHONE=C;LC_MEASUREMENT=de_DE.UTF-8;LC_IDENTIFICATION=C" >>> >>> Any Idea? >>> >>> Best regards >>> Tilmann >>> >>> ______________________________________________ >>> R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >>> PLEASE do read the posting guide >>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >> > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. -- Enrico Schumann Lucerne, Switzerland http://enricoschumann.net ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.