How to get network DateTime.Now()?

Question

Actually in flutter DateTime.now() is returns device date and time. Users sometimes change their internal clock and using DateTime.now() can give wrong result.

1. How can i get Network/Server Current DateTime in flutter ?
2. Is it possible to get Network/Server Current DateTime Without using any packages ?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

It's not possible without any API. You can use ntp plugin:

A plugin that allows you to get precise time from Network Time Protocol (NTP). It implements the whole NTP protocol in dart.

This is useful for time-based events since DateTime.now() returns the time of the device. Users sometimes change their internal clock and using DateTime.now() can give the wrong result. You can just get clock offset [NTP.getNtpTime] and apply it manually to DateTime.now() object when needed (just add offset as milliseconds duration), or you can get already formatted [DateTime] object from [NTP.now].

Add this to your package's pubspec.yaml file:

dependencies:
  ntp: ^1.0.7

Then add the code like this:

import 'package:ntp/ntp.dart';

Future<void> main() async {
  DateTime _myTime;
  DateTime _ntpTime;

  /// Or you could get NTP current (It will call DateTime.now() and add NTP offset to it)
  _myTime = await NTP.now();

  /// Or get NTP offset (in milliseconds) and add it yourself
  final int offset = await NTP.getNtpOffset(localTime: DateTime.now());
  _ntpTime = _myTime.add(Duration(milliseconds: offset));

  print('My time: $_myTime');
  print('NTP time: $_ntpTime');
  print('Difference: ${_myTime.difference(_ntpTime).inMilliseconds}ms');
}

Answer 2

Try using the world clock api. Also, know that there is a chance the api could fail at some point... So I would recommend using a try-catch block around the http call, and if it does happen to fail, just return regular local time of the device....

  Future<void> getTime()async{
  var res = await http.get(Uri.parse('http://worldclockapi.com/api/json/est/now'));
  if (res.statusCode == 200){
  print(jsonDecode(res.body).toString());
}}

Answer 3

You must call a API for this, There are plenty of API's available

here is an example GET API for Indian time

http://worldtimeapi.org/api/timezone/Asia/Kolkata

The response will be like

  {
      "abbreviation": "IST",
      "client_ip": "45.125.117.46",
      "datetime": "2022-02-26T10:50:43.406519+05:30",
      "day_of_week": 6,
      "day_of_year": 57,
      "dst": false,
      "dst_from": null,
      "dst_offset": 0,
      "dst_until": null,
      "raw_offset": 19800,
      "timezone": "Asia/Kolkata",
      "unixtime": 1645852843,
      "utc_datetime": "2022-02-26T05:20:43.406519+00:00",
      "utc_offset": "+05:30",
      "week_number": 8
    }

If you dont know your country zone just call this API to get all timezones in the world

http://worldtimeapi.org/api/timezone/