Updating server time display

[Staylorpi]

My website offer its members the opportunity to build their own HTML page. I need a real time clock in the form of an external script, not an HTML page, that they can place on their page wherever convenient. I want to display the server time (EDT), not their local computer time.

The script below doesn't update the clock display every minute unless the user's page is refreshed. I call it with <SCRIPT SRC='http://myDomain.com/time.php' TYPE='text/javascript'></SCRIPT>

<!--
document.write("<span id = 'timedisplay'><\/span>");
function timeupdate(){
var servertime = "<?php echo date('g:i a T', time()); ?>";
document.getElementById("timedisplay").innerHTML = servertime;
}
setInterval("timeupdate()", 60000);
//-->

How can I retrieve the server's time and update the display every minute without having to refresh the client-side HTML page?

[sneakyimp]

You could send the server time only once when the page loads and then set up your javascript to adjust the clock every minute.

[NogDog]

Or you could just set up a javascript clock function that gets the user's local timezone offset and adjusts the local time based on the timezone offset that you want them to use. For instance, see http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-3513-6016329.html for some info on how to convert the time to a specific time zone.

[Staylorpi]

"Great minds think alike." Yes, tried grabbing the server time once via PHP, then incrementing it every 60000 milliseconds via JavaScript. I was amazed how inaccurate a JS timer is! Deviates quite a bit, depending upon the user's computer activity. Some members leave their page up for days and the drift becomes quite obvious. Yes, it's not the end of the world, but it's not the way to present accurate time.

As to using the user's computer clock, my experience has been that users' clocks are often set incorrectly, wrong time zones, etc. Local time is not the way to go. Again, it "works", from user to user, to some degree, but it's a sloppy solution.

My problem is to determine how to grab a fresh server time on demand. What's maddening is that I assume there's a way to do it, but no matter how much I dig, I can't find a procedure. Someone suggested toggling a PHP module on and off using Web Services (REST, XML, SOAP), but the programming is beyond me.

[sneakyimp]

You could try AJAX or create an iframe that reloads itself periodically. Aside from that, you don't really have much in the way of options.

[cahva]

That can easilly be done with ajax. I dont want to spoil your learning experience so here's a script that can be done with minor modification to suit your needs 😉
http://www.w3schools.com/ajax/ajax_server.asp