[LEAPSECS] Lets get REAL about time.

Steve Allen sla at ucolick.org
Sun Jan 22 01:00:08 EST 2012


On 2012 Jan 21, at 14:34, Zefram wrote:

> This is a reason for having a distinct representation of UTC timestamps.

> You can have a future UTC time, and convert it between UTC and (say)

> London time, without being able to represent it as a realtime_t. I guess

> you need a conversion interface that accepts *two* tz parameters (source

> and destination).


Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my impression
that the TC TIMEZONE folks (who are largely a continuation of the
folks who fixed up the iCalendar standard for its new family of
RFCs) are dealing with exactly this sort of thing.

Note that the problem of assigning a timestamp to a future event
is problematic simply because of bureaucrats changing the rules
for timezone events, and in that sense the TAI value for a future
event expressed in local time may not be predictable less than
a week in the future, at least based on the experience of the
folks who maintain the tz database.

--
Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855
University of California Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m



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