datetime format - visual expression builder - data flow

Question

If I use currenttimestamp I get the time one hour behind
In standard expression the floowing works to get the correct time
convertTimeZone(utcnow(),'UTC','GMT Standard Time')
However, it does not get recognised in visual expression builder

Answer 1

Hi @arkiboys ,

Thank you for posting query on Microsoft Q&A Platform.

currentTimestamp() - Gets the current timestamp when the job starts to run with local time zone.

When we say local time zone, that means time zone of spark cluster which will be used by ADF to run your dataflow.

When you say standard expression, I assume you mean pipeline expression(correct me if i am wrong).

convertTimeZone() - Convert a timestamp from the source time zone to the target time zone.

Since, currentTimestamp() not guarantees it returns UTC, better to use currentUTC() function in data flows.

currentUTC() the current timestamp as UTC. If you want your current time to be interpreted in a different timezone than your cluster time zone, you can pass an optional timezone in the form of 'GMT', 'PST', 'UTC', 'America/Cayman'. It is defaulted to the current timezone. Refer Java's SimpleDateFormat class for available formats. https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html. To convert the UTC time to a different timezone use fromUTC().

Hope this will help. Please let us know if any further queries.

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