Class

• <DRM Absolute Time>

Superclass

• <DRM Time Point>

Subclass

• None.

Definition

An instance of this DRM class specifies an absolute time in UTC, which is not relative to some other point in time.

The <DRM Absolute Time> class provides

1. a means to specify an absolute time (UTC) for metadata, and
2. a general-purpose mechanism for describing points in absolute (UTC) time.

The time_value field specifies the time value.

Class diagram

Figure 6.1 — DRM_Absolute_Time

Constraints

• Publishable object

Example(s)

• Consider a transmittal constructed from a historical database, in which the time at which an event happened is recorded as 1994-10-03T17:56:47Z. In the transmittal, this information is specified by a <DRM Absolute Time> instance with time_significance = OCCURRENCE as follows.

  time_significance	OCCURRENCE
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.year	1994
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.month	OCTOBER
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.day	3
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.hour	17
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.minutes	56
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.seconds	47,0

• Consider a transmittal for which the data provider wishes to represent the date and time when the transmittal was created. The time value is 2003-03-15T15:18:33Z. The data provider creates a <DRM Absolute Time> instance with time_significance = CREATION_DATE and the other field values set appropriately as follows.

  time_significance	CREATION_DATE
  time_value.configuration	DATE_YMD_AND_TIME_HMS
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.year	2003
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.month	MARCH
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.day	23
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.hour	15
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.minutes	18
  time_value.value. ymd_hms.seconds	33,0

  This <DRM Absolute Time> instance is then attached as a component of the <DRM Transmittal Root> instance of the transmittal.

• A <DRM Absolute Time> instance is used to specify the date and time of observations.