Proposal for new ISO C 9x time API

D. J. Bernstein djb at cr.yp.to
Fri Oct 9 23:40:07 UTC 1998


Paul Eggert writes:
> which I am calling the ``modified TIME_TAI''

Your time differences break down near leap seconds. Ever watched xntpd
try to handle a leap second? Wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble.

After that, if you don't record the leap second, you'll start printing
incorrect local times from before the leap second, for the same reason
that Markus starts printing incorrect time differences.

The solution is obvious: keep a table of leap seconds! There's no other
way to handle UTC timestamps correctly.

---Dan
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