Returns the current date and time in absolute time format.

The F$TIME function has no arguments, but must be followed by parentheses.

Format

F$TIME()

Return Value

When the current day of the month is any of the values 1 to 9, the first character in the returned string is a blank character. The time portion of the string is always in character position 13, at an offset of 12 characters from the beginning of the string.

Note that you must use the assignment operator (=) to preserve the blank character in the returned string. If you use the string assignment operator (:=), the leading blank is dropped.

Arguments

None.

Example

$ OPEN/WRITE OUTFILE DATA.DAT 
$ TIME_STAMP = F$TIME() 
$ WRITE OUTFILE TIME_STAMP 
 
      

This example shows how to use the F$TIME function to time-stamp a file that you create from a command procedure. OUTFILE is the logical name for the file DATA.DAT, which is opened for writing. The F$TIME function returns the current date and time string, and assigns this string to the symbol TIME_STAMP. The WRITE command writes the date and time string to OUTFILE.