nanog mailing list archives
Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work?
From: Jimmy Hess <mysidia () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 21:33:14 -0500
On 7/3/12, Vadim Antonov <avg () kotovnik com> wrote:
There's always a possibility of using pseudo-TAI internally by reconstructing it from UTC. This is not the best solution (because it requires systems to have long-term memory of past leap seconds, or
How about, instead of requiring systems to "remember" past leap seconds; You represent every single timestamp instead of as timestamp = <32-bit int, seconds since jan 1 1970 00:00:00> You represent all system timestamps as tuples: timestamp = ( <32-bint int seconds since jan 1 1970 00:00:00>, <integer representing the leap-second offset since jan 1 1970> ) No need to retain a history. Just retain the data in the same way that Hours, Minutes, and Second are retained. Comparison is simple. (Timestamp2 - Offset2) - (Timestamp1 - Offset1) The downside is you can no longer set your system clock by hand, because humans won't know the right number of "leap seconds" to supply when setting the time from their wall clock. That's a problem necesitating you keep a history anyways. For time to be universally coordinated, it has to be coordinated. One of the basic requirements for system time is that it interacts with humans, and humans have to be able to set their clock from conventional time sources which are based on local time, without the machine having to be constantly updated or reach out on a network and figure out how that translates into a reasonable machine time. -- -JH
Current thread:
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work?, (continued)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Jay Ashworth (Jul 03)
- RE: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Keith Medcalf (Jul 03)
- RE: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Peter Lothberg (Jul 03)
- RE: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Tony Finch (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Vadim Antonov (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Tony Finch (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Vadim Antonov (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Steve Allen (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Vadim Antonov (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Christopher Morrow (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Jimmy Hess (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Peter Lothberg (Jul 05)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Jay Ashworth (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Owen DeLong (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Steve Allen (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? George Herbert (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Tyler Haske (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Majdi S. Abbas (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Tyler Haske (Jul 03)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Robert E. Seastrom (Jul 04)
- Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work? Jimmy Hess (Jul 04)