Getting current GMT time

Question

Is there a method in C# that returns the UTC (GMT) time zone? Not based on the system\'s time.

Basically I want to get the correct UTC time even if my system time is

Answer 1

You can simply hardcode a base DateTime in and calculate the difference between your given DateTime with that base to determine the precise desired DateTime as below code:

    string format = "ffffd dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss";     
    string utcBaseStr = "Wed 18 Nov 2020 07:31:34";
    string newyorkBaseStr = "Wed 18 Nov 2020 02:31:34";     
    string nowNewyorkStr = "Wed 18 Nov 2020 03:06:47";
    
    DateTime newyorkBase = DateTime.ParseExact(newyorkBaseStr, format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
    DateTime utcBase = DateTime.ParseExact(utcBaseStr, format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
    DateTime now = DateTime.ParseExact(nowNewyorkStr, format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
    
    var diffMiliseconds = (now - newyorkBase).TotalMilliseconds;
    DateTime nowUtc = utcBase.AddMilliseconds(diffMiliseconds);
    
    Console.WriteLine("Newyork Base = " + newyorkBase);     
    Console.WriteLine("UTC Base = " + utcBase);
    Console.WriteLine("Newyork Now = " + now);      
    Console.WriteLine("Newyork UTC = " + nowUtc);   

The output of above code is as follow:

Newyork Base = 11/18/2020 2:31:34 AM
UTC Base = 11/18/2020 7:31:34 AM
Newyork Now = 11/18/2020 3:06:47 AM
Newyork UTC = 11/18/2020 8:06:47 AM