Validate timestamp for a particular duration in C++ - c++

Question

I want to see whether my data is 120 second old by looking at the timestamp of the data so I have below code:
uint64_t now = duration_cast<milliseconds>(steady_clock::now().time_since_epoch()).count();
bool is_old = (120 * 1000 < (now - data_holder->getTimestamp()));
In the above code data_holder->getTimestamp() is uint64_t which returns timestamp in milliseconds. Does my above code looks right?

Answer 1

I'd probably do something like this:
auto now = system_clock::now().time_since_epoch();
// Use the correct time duration below. Milliseconds could be wrong, see 1)
auto diff = now - std::chrono::milliseconds(data_holder->getTimestamp());
bool is_old = diff > std::chrono::seconds{120};
// bool is_old = diff > 120s; // From C++14 onwards.
1) As mentioned, milliseconds could be the wrong unit to use for getTimestamp(). All possible types are
std::chrono::hours
std::chrono::minutes
std::chrono::seconds
std::chrono::milliseconds
std::chrono::microseconds
std::chrono::nanoseconds
You probably have to try out which one to use, because that depends on data_holder->getTimestamp().
Note: Big one
Making sure to use system_clock to measure time since epoch will work most likely. But the standard doesn't require that a clock's epoch is the UNIX epoch. You have encountered this with steady_clock already.
You'd have to calculate the difference between the clock's epoch and the epoch yourself (and I don't know of a way to do that right now for any clock). For system_clock, if you don't trust it to use the unix epoch you can use the following:
system_clock::duration time_since_unix_epoch()
{
std::tm epoch;
epoch.tm_mday = 1;
epoch.tm_mon = 0;
epoch.tm_year = 70;
std::time_t epocht = mktime(&epoch);
return system_clock::now() - system_clock::from_time_t(epocht);
}
instead of system_clock::now(). I'd prefer this method.
Unfortunatly you can't just replace system_clock with another clock from std::chrono because only std::system_clock offers from_time_t(time_t) which converts a real date to the internal time_point used by the clock.