I have this example, where _time is not from an epoch time in the source event, a syslog entry
Mar 29 17:54:11 amiohdrmp1 snmpd[14773]: Connection from UDP: [127.0.0.1]:46920
In this particular case, syslog uses EDT without printing zone info. Splunk correctly dates this event at 3/29/16 9:54:11.000 PM, i.e., 21:54:11. As a result, %H correctly gives 21. However, date_hour is 17, the split output from source text!
Whereas this case looks like a fixable bug, the designer may have other use cases in mind. You have sufficiently scared me, so I'll just accept "in date_* no trust" as answer:-)
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