[time-nuts] Leap Quirks
Chuck Harris
cfharris at erols.com
Sun Jan 4 14:57:01 UTC 2009
Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> In message <4960027E.1000103 at erols.com>, Chuck Harris writes:
>> Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
>
>>>> Ok, that is news to me. Are you saying that (pulling a number out of
>>>> the air) time_t = 21120123 could be followed by 21120123 on a year where
>>>> we added a leap second?
>>> Apart from the number, that is exactly what happens: The last
>>> second of the (UTC) day is recycled twice.
>> [...] and all of the sources I have found
>> concur that time_t is the number of seconds since 1/1/1970 UTC without
>> regard to leap seconds.
>>
>> When did this change?
>
> Never, that's the trouble.
>
> time_t is better defined as:
>
> d * 86400 + min(rs, 86399)
>
> where:
> d = Number of complete days since 1970-01-01H00:00:00Z
> rs = number of seconds since UTC midnight.
>
> Eliminating leapseconds would make it correct however.
Language is such a problem with these discussions. Your equation
says exactly what I believe to be true, but your use of the word
correct muddles everything for me. POSIXly correct, and unixly
correct is when time_t follows your equation. Following UTC is
another kind of correct: politically correct.
I believe your use of the phrase "make it correct" shows your bias
towards removing the leap second corrections from UTC. This is my
bias as well.
-Chuck Harris
More information about the Time-nuts_lists.febo.com
mailing list