The following defect was logged yesterday: Each day at 4pm PST our users are denied seamless access into [third party website].

Though I am sure the author of the code may be of another opinion, aren’t these types of defects kind of fun?  They are like brain-teasers which you want to solve without looking at the answer — in this case is the code.  As a bonus, you can bring these riddles home and share over dinner with family and friends.  Everyone gets to play along.   

Here’s the answer:

// Encryption uses GMT time in verifying timestamp.
DateTime    dtNow      = DateTime.Now ;
string      sMonth     = "0" + dtNow.Month.ToString() ;
string      sDay       = "0" + dtNow.Day.ToString() ;
// Do not make changes to hour when switching to daylight savings time.
DateTime    dtUTC      = dtNow.ToUniversalTime();
string      sHour      = "0" + (dtUTC.Hour).ToString() ;
string      sMinute    = "0" + dtNow.Minute.ToString() ;
string      sSecond    = "0" + dtNow.Second.ToString() ;

// timestamp t, in format "yyyymmddhhmmss"
string sTimeStamp = dtNow.Year.ToString() +
    sMonth.Substring( ( ( sMonth.Length == 2 ) ? 0 : 1 ) , 2 ) +
    sDay.Substring( ( ( sDay.Length == 2 ) ? 0 : 1 ) , 2 ) +
    sHour.Substring( ( ( sHour.Length == 2 ) ? 0 : 1 ) , 2 ) +
    sMinute.Substring( ( ( sMinute.Length == 2 ) ? 0 : 1 ) , 2 ) +
    sSecond.Substring( ( ( sSecond.Length == 2 ) ? 0 : 1 ) , 2 ) ;

Neat formatting routine, eh?