[LEAPSECS] Crunching Bulletin B numbers (POSIX time)

[Paul Sheer]

> 

> Why would you need that?  An API might accommodate leap seconds, if  

> that is required and they exist.  Isolated machines sit on the same  

> API, but the leap seconds never come.  Japan doesn't have daylight  

> saving times, but they don't run a special version of Unix that lacks  

> tm_isdst in a struct tm.

> 



Consider an app that wants to write log lines using correct UTC
inclusive of leap seconds (eg. "????-12-31 23:59:60")

let's say that app also stores BER encoded 32-bit timestamps in a
local database, and those timestamps are inclusive of leap seconds.

that app should still work on an isolated machine just as it does
on an network-connected machines and have the 32-bit timestamps
properly correlate with the ascii timestamps inclusive of leap
seconds.

to do this correctly for ten years, it would need a ten year leap
second table.

we don't want a situation where, the network-connected machine
converts the 32-bit timestamps to and from ascii and would get
*different* *results* just because it was connected to the
internet.

I conjecture that if we can't fix this kind of problem, then we
are not much better off than the current situation.

-paul