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[Python-Dev] proposal: add basic time type to the standard library

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Tue, 26 Feb 2002 21:11:47 +0100 
Jim Fulton wrote:
> 
> > major issues right now is 1. should the type know about
> > timezones (probably not),
> 
> :(
> 
> -1
> 
> Doesn't the proposal sort of imply time-zone
> awareness of some kind? Or does it simply imply
> UT storage?

I tried that in early version of mxDateTime -- it fails
badly. I switched to the local time assumption very
early in the development.

Note that Fredrik's type is an abstract type; it doesn't
even store anything -- that's up to subtypes which of
course can implement timezones at their liking.
 
> > and 2. should it support basic
> > arithmetics (probably yes).
> 
> Does this imply leap second hell, or will we
> simply be vague about expectations?

The type will store a fixed point in time, so why
worry about leap seconds (most system's don't support these
anyway and if they do, the support is usually switched off per
default) ?
 
> I'd also like to see simple access methods for year,
> month, day, hours, minutes, and seconds, with date parts
> being one based and time parts being zero based.

In the abstract base type ?

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
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