Date and time handling

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9892172-B2
Application number	US-201313888118-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 6, 2013
Priority date	Mar 15, 2013
Publication date	Feb 13, 2018
Grant date	Feb 13, 2018

Abstract

Embodiments are provided for date and time handling. In some embodiments, a timestamp and a location of creation for a content item is received, a time zone offset is retrieved for the location, the timestamp is converted into a local date and time using the time zone offset, and the local date and time and the time zone offset are used to create a value for a temporal identifier, and the temporal identifier is stored for the content item.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for date and time handling, comprising:
receiving a timestamp and a location of creation for a content item;
retrieving a time zone offset for the location;
converting the timestamp into a local date and time using the time zone offset;
creating, using the converted timestamp, a temporal identifier comprising a bit integer comprising bit integer fields, the bit integer fields comprising a year field, a month field, a day field, an hour field, a minute field, a second field, a millisecond field, a day of the week field, an offset field, and a precision field having a value associated with one or more values present in the timestamp, wherein the value of the precision field indicates a precision level of one or more values of the timestamp represented by the bit integer fields;
storing the temporal identifier for the content item;
receiving a query for the content item; and
retrieving the content item identified by the temporal identifier.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing a sort order value for the content item within the millisecond field of the bit integer.

3. The method for date and time handling of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a user defined date and time for the content item overriding the timestamp;
using the user defined date and time to create the temporal identifier;
determining a precision value for the user defined date and time; and
creating the temporal identifier with (i) the user defined date and time and (ii) the precision value.

4. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing device, causes the computing device to:
receive a timestamp and a location of creation for a content item;
retrieve a time zone offset for the location;
convert the timestamp into a local date and time using the time zone offset;
create, using the converted timestamp, a temporal identifier comprising a bit integer comprising bit integer fields, the bit integer fields comprising a year field, a month field, a day field, an hour field, a minute field, a second field, a millisecond field, a day of the week field, an offset field, and a precision field having a value associated with one or more values present in the timestamp, wherein the value of the precision field indicates a prediction level of one or more values of the timestamp represented by the bit integer fields;
store the temporal identifier for the content item;
receive a query for the content item; and
retrieve the content item identified by the temporal identifier.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 4 , wherein the instructions when executed by at least one processor of the computing device, further cause the computing device to store a sort order value for the content item in the millisecond field of the bit integer.

6. A system for date and time handling, the system comprising:
one or more processors; and
memory containing instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to:
receive a timestamp and a location of creation for a content item;
retrieve a time zone offset for the location;
convert the timestamp into a local date and time using the time zone offset;
create, using the converted timestamp, a temporal identifier comprising a bit integer comprising bit integer fields, the bit integer fields comprising a year field, a month field, a day field, an hour field, a minute field, a second field, a millisecond field, a day of the week field, an offset field, and a precision field having a value associated with one or more values present in the timestamp, wherein the value of the precision field indicates a precision level of one or more values of the timestamp represented by the bit integer fields;
store the temporal identifier for the content item;
receive a query for the content item; and
retrieve the content item identified by the temporal identifier.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the memory further contains instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to store a sort order value for the content item in the millisecond field of the bit integer.

8. The system of claim 6 , the memory containing instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to:
receive a user-defined date and time for the content item, the user-defined date and time overriding the timestamp;
use the user-defined date and time to create the temporal identifier;
determine the precision value for the user-defined date and time; and
create the temporal identifier with the user defined-date and time and the precision value.

9. The system of claim 6 , wherein the precision value indicates an absence of information for at least one of a year, a month, a day, an hour, a minute, a second, or a millisecond.

10. The system of claim 6 , wherein the bit integer comprises 64-bit integer, and wherein each of the year, month, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond, day of week, and offset fields comprises a plurality of bits of the 64-bit integer.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the value of the precision field indicates an absence of information for at least one of the year, month, day, hour, minute, second, or millisecond of the bit integer.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 4 , wherein creating the temporal identifier comprises creating a 64-bit integer comprising multiple bits for each of the year, month, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond, day of the week, and offset fields.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising sorting, using the created temporal identifier, the content item relative to one or more additional content items.

Assignees

• Dropbox Inc

Inventors

• Dwan Michael

Classifications

• G06F16/2477 Primary

  Temporal data queries · CPC title

• G06F17/30551 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic