[tz] Question about leap seconds

Steve Allen sla at ucolick.org
Wed Sep 11 16:18:43 UTC 2013


On Wed 2013-09-11T16:55:49 +0100, Zefram hath writ:
> Generalising a bit: it is sensible to represent a timezone's behaviour
> in a way that's independent of the local interpretation of time_t.
> Decoding time_t to a UTC time should be a separate step from converting
> a UTC time to local time.

Adding to that, the term UTC is polysemic in the context of computer
timekeeping.  I urge anyone using the term UTC to be explicit about
whether the intended meaning is UTC[ITU-R] (has leap seconds) or
UTC[POSIX] (no leap seconds).  This may help avoid misunderstandings.

--
Steve Allen                 <sla at ucolick.org>                WGS-84 (GPS)
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