Add nowutc() function that is similar to now(), but returns the curre…

…nt system time in UTC. Also added tests and docs, as well as doc updates for the new day of week formatting.

base/dates/conversions.jl

@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ function now()
  return DateTime(tm.year+1900,tm.month+1,tm.mday,tm.hour,tm.min,tm.sec)
 end
 today() = Date(now())
+nowutc() = unix2datetime(time())
 
 rata2datetime(days) = DateTime(yearmonthday(days)...)
 datetime2rata(dt::DateTime) = days(dt)

doc/stdlib/dates.rst

@@ -48,6 +48,8 @@ alternatively, you could call ``using Dates`` to bring all exported functions in
  ``M`` 00 Matches minutes
  ``S`` 00 Matches seconds
  ``s`` .500 Matches milliseconds
+ ``e`` Mon, Tues Matches abbreviated days of the week
+ ``E`` Monday Matches full name days of the week
  ``yyyymmdd`` 19960101 Matches fixed-width year, month, and day
  =============== ========= ===============================================================
 
@@ -87,7 +89,12 @@ alternatively, you could call ``using Dates`` to bring all exported functions in
 .. function:: now() -> DateTime
 
  Returns a DateTime corresponding to the user's system
- time.
+ time including the system timezone locale.
+
+.. function:: nowutc() -> DateTime
+
+ Returns a DateTime corresponding to the user's system
+ time as UTC/GMT.
 
 Accessor Functions
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

test/dates/conversions.jl

@@ -42,4 +42,5 @@
 @test Dates.datetime2julian(Dates.DateTime(2013,12,3,21)) == 2456630.375
 
 @test typeof(Dates.now()) <: Dates.DateTime
-@test typeof(Dates.today()) <: Dates.Date
+@test typeof(Dates.today()) <: Dates.Date
+@test typeof(Dates.nowtuc()) <: Dates.DateTime