String to Date/Time Node Feature Request: Option to Treat Strings to be in Local Time

KNIME Analytics Platform
1

Dear all,

from my understanding Knime works in UTC. However, when I import data it mostly does not have a timezone indicator (e.g. CET) the conversion node assumes that the time zone is in UTC. This is wrong with data in local time and can be seen when data is exported with timezone indicator.

I think it would be a good idea to add: "String to Date/Time Node" add option "Assume Local Time Zone". This could be a checkbox: Assume string to be in local time, and in brackets the setting taken from user.timezone variable. What do you think?

Currently I help myself by using a Java snippet to replace the "String to Date/Time Node".

Best regards, Max

2

Hi Max, you are right all time and timestamps in KNIME are currently converted into UTC. This drawback has been recently addressed inside the Database Reader and Writer nodes, whereby the Time Series node still rely on UTC times. We are currently looking into the new Joda framework to support timezones throughout all KNIME nodes.

3

Thank you for this outlook. It will be worth the wait.

I attached the Java snippet I use in the meantime (embedded in an example).

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