Understanding application log time frame is crucial troubleshooting task where application log time could be different from your local machine clock. In this post I will provide simple examples and terms on understanding the time frames. P.S> attribution to ChatGPT for helping me write my very first dev.to blog When you're debugging an issue or investigating an incident, logs are your best friends. But nothing is more frustrating than realizing the timestamp in your application logs doesn't match your local time. You might see a log line saying 2025-04-24T10:00:00Z, but you're pretty sure the event happened at 3 PM your time. In this post, we’ll break down: What are the time formats commonly used in application logs What UTC time is How to identify the time zone used in your logs How to convert between log time and your local machine’s time Simple examples to bring it all together

Apr 24, 2025 - 09:32
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Understanding application log time frame is crucial troubleshooting task where application log time could be different from your local machine clock. In this post I will provide simple examples and terms on understanding the time frames.

P.S> attribution to ChatGPT for helping me write my very first dev.to blog

When you're debugging an issue or investigating an incident, logs are your best friends. But nothing is more frustrating than realizing the timestamp in your application logs doesn't match your local time. You might see a log line saying 2025-04-24T10:00:00Z, but you're pretty sure the event happened at 3 PM your time.

In this post, we’ll break down:

  • What are the time formats commonly used in application logs
  • What UTC time is
  • How to identify the time zone used in your logs
  • How to convert between log time and your local machine’s time
  • Simple examples to bring it all together