On Sun, 2016-03-27 at 12:16 -0400, Michael Stone wrote: > On Sun, Mar 27, 2016 at 02:34:26AM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote: > > > > > > > > $ date -d 00:59 > > > Sun 27 Mar 00:59:00 GMT 2016 > > > $ date -d "Sun 27 Mar 00:59:00 GMT 2016" > > > date: invalid date ‘Sun 27 Mar 00:59:00 GMT 2016’ > > Unfortunately that input is not in a locale independent format. That > > is why it cannot be read by date in the above. The date documentation > > says this: > > > > ‘-d DATESTR’ > > ‘--date=DATESTR’ > > Display the date and time specified in DATESTR instead of the > > current date and time. DATESTR can be in almost any common format. > > It can contain month names, time zones, ‘am’ and ‘pm’, ‘yesterday’, > > etc. For example, ‘--date="2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193 +0530"’ > > specifies the instant of time that is 489,392,193 nanoseconds after > > February 27, 2004 at 2:19:13 PM in a time zone that is 5 hours and > > 30 minutes east of UTC. > > Note: input currently must be in locale independent format. E.g., > > the LC_TIME=C below is needed to print back the correct date in > > many locales: > > date -d "$(LC_TIME=C date)" > > *Note Date input formats::. > > > > The "locale independent format" looks to be the problem in the above > > to me. But I think that is only your command line test as that is > > different from what I see in the tzdata postinst. > This is where I rant that the entire -d interface should be officially > deprecated because it is so broken, and replaced with something reliable > that doesn't implement a confusing mess of kinda-NLP. [...]
It's a bit late for that. Still, there should be clear documentation of which locale-independent input formats can be relied on (and they should be covered by regression tests). Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. - Donald Knuth
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