diff --git a/docs/manual/exploring.md b/docs/manual/exploring.md index b3b23c18..ced483e3 100644 --- a/docs/manual/exploring.md +++ b/docs/manual/exploring.md @@ -47,6 +47,10 @@ A “date” type is created when a column is [transformed into dates](transform Date-formatted data in OpenRefine relies on a number of conversion tools and standards. For something to be considered a date in OpenRefine, it will be converted into the ISO-8601-compliant extended format with time in UTC: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ. +:::info +All datetimes are stored internally as UTC with full date & time precisions. During conversion from strings, date/times without timezone info were interpreted as **local** up until May 2018 when OpenRefine 3.0 was released, at which point they were switched from **local** to **UTC**. One benefit of this change was to introduce consistency and reproducibility when working collaboratively and sharing projects across timezones. Discussed in issue [#6009](https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/issues/6009) +::: + When you run Edit cellsCommon transformsTo date, the following column of strings on the left will transform into the values on the right: |Input|→|Output| diff --git a/docs/manual/grelfunctions.md b/docs/manual/grelfunctions.md index 19002ddd..f40db435 100644 --- a/docs/manual/grelfunctions.md +++ b/docs/manual/grelfunctions.md @@ -447,6 +447,10 @@ As of OpenRefine 3.4.1, uniques() reorders the array items it returns; in 3.4 be ## Date functions {#date-functions} +:::info +Date/times without timezone info were interpreted as **local** up until May 2018 when OpenRefine 3.0 was released, at which point they were switched from **local** to **UTC**. One benefit of this change was to introduce consistency and reproducibility when working collaboratively and sharing projects across timezones. Discussed in issue [#6009](https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/issues/6009) +::: + ###### now() {#now} Returns the current time according to your system clock, in the [ISO 8601 extended format](exploring#data-types) (converted to UTC). For example, 10:53am (and 00 seconds) on November 26th 2020 in EST returns [date 2020-11-26T15:53:00Z].