ARTICLE
System Time Zone and User Time Zone
Two time zones are preconfigured in AS
ABAP , the system time zone and
the user time zone .
The system time zone is the time zone of the
system time and the
system date and cannot be changed while
the system is running. It is contained in the column TZONESYS in
the database table TTZCU .
The user time zone is a time zone that can be defined for the
user time and
user date of each individual user in the
user master record . It is
contained in the system field sy-zonlo .
Both time zones are displayed in transaction SU01
on the Fixed Values tab, however only the user time zone can
be changed here. This requires a new logon to take effect. If no user
time zone is defined in the user master record, or the specified time
zone is invalid or inactive, the default value from the column
TZONEDEF in the database table TTZCU
is used. If this value is invalid or inactive, the system time
zone is used.
System Time and System Date
The system time and the system date are the local time and local date in
AS ABAP in the system time zone. They are produced by regular
synchronizations between the clock of the
ABAP runtime server and the clock
of the database server. During the synchronization process, the ABAP
runtime environment clock is set to the database server clock. Since
this happens on all application
servers in AS ABAP , the ABAP
runtime environment clock is synchronized with the clocks on all other
application servers and with the database system clock, and therefore
shows the system time and system date of the entire AS ABAP .
The character-like system fields
sy-uzeit and sy-datum are provided with the system time and
system date at certain times.
Note
From a technical perspective, the ABAP runtime environment clock is
synchronized with the database server clock on request. If a time is
required (for example, to populate system
fields for date and time ), the system checks whether the last
synchronization was performed during the specified interval. If this is
not the case, synchronization is performed.
User Time and User Date
The user time and the user date are the local time and local date of the
current user, calculated from the system time and the user time zone.
The character-like system fields
sy-timlo and sy-datlo are provided with the user time and user
date at certain times. Furthermore, the content of the system field
sy-zonlo can be passed to the statement
CONVERT TIME STAMP , after a time stamp is created using
GET TIME STAMP , to obtain the user
time and user date.
Documentation extract taken from SAP system, � Copyright SAP AG. All rights reserved