[LEAPSECS] L-format. Re: Crunching Bulletin B numbers (POSIX time)
Paul Sheer
p at 2038bug.com
Mon Feb 21 10:49:25 EST 2011
On Mon, 2011-02-21 at 11:17 +0000, Tony Finch wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Feb 2011, Ian Batten wrote:
>
> > > Ascii timestamps do not have a way to include leap second information.
> >
> > But they trivially could.
>
> Is there any standard way to do so? If there is I would love a citation!
>
No, it's my own idea.
Hereby released to the world:
"2010-02-21 09:40:27 -0600 L0024"
I hereby name it "timestamp L-format".
It solves the problem of absolutely specifying a future time where you
don't know how many leap seconds there will be between now and then.
With the L included it means that the timestamp can be absolutely
converted to TAI and represents a precise caesium second on the TAI
scale.
Without the L it means a regular Posix time relative to the start of the
day - so called "appointment time".
In this way it is backwardly compatible.
However if leap seconds are published ten years in advance, it would
mostly obviate a need for these new timestamps.
-paul
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