I agree with Shields; all time formats should be returned consistently by
functions using what we are calling here "UNIX" or "machine" format. It
should then be the responsibility of the calling application to convert this
time to "human readable" format, if desired, for logging, etc. The
conversion from "machine" to "human" is trivial.
Not only can converting from a "human" format to a "machine" format be
difficult, it can be impossible at times unless the "human" format is always
provided as GMT or the complete time zone and DST information is retained in
the format.
I would also suggest that any "human" format that is used for logging events
be done using only time in GMT. Otherwise, actions like server relocations,
time zone changes or DST changes can cause the original logged time to
become indeterminate (unless of course, you decide to also store the time
zone and the DST flag with each logged event).
Rich Shockney
RS Marketing
rsmarketing.com
timezoneconverter.com
domain-registration-zone.com
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of Michael Shields
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2000 2:11 PM
To: Charles Daminato
Cc: L.C.; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: consistency
> Many of us cannot convert from Unix time to human readable time on the fly
> ;)
Yes, but the code to convert from human-readable to machine-readable
can be substantial, as is the code to convert from human-readable to
human-readable-in-ISO-8601 or human-readable-in-localized-format.
Converting from Unix format to any other is trivial given commonly
available tools.
--
Shields.
