mktime, how to handle dates before 01-01-1970 ?

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Christian Heimes wrote:
> M.-A. Lemburg schrieb:
>> Christian Heimes wrote:
>>> Ben Finney wrote:
>>>> If you're committed to changing the epoch anyway, I would recommend
>>>> using <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_year_numbering>
>>>> (epoch at 4004 BCE) since it is widely used to unify dates referring to
>>>> human history.
>>> I prefer JDN or MJD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDN) for dates long
>>> before or after the unix epoch. The conversion from JDN as float to a
>>> datetime object is trivial.
>>
>> FWIW, mxDateTime can help you with all of those:
>>
>>>>> import mx.DateTime
>>>>> mx.DateTime.DateTimeFrom('1.1.4004 BCE')
>> <mx.DateTime.DateTime object for '-4003-01-01 00:00:00.00' at 2b534a46a2f0>
>>>>> mx.DateTime.DateTimeFrom('1.1.4004 BCE').jdn
>> 258994.5
>>>>> mx.DateTime.DateTimeFromJDN(258994.5)
>> <mx.DateTime.DateTime object for '-4003-01-01 00:00:00.00' at 2b534aeb72f0>
>>>>> mx.DateTime.DateTimeFrom('1.1.4004 BCE').mjd
>> -2141006.0
>>>>> mx.DateTime.DateTimeFromMJD(-2141006.0)
>> <mx.DateTime.DateTime object for '-4003-01-01 00:00:00.00' at 2b534a46a2f0>
>>
>> The supported date range is limited by the number of days
>> that fit into a C long. Should be enough for most use cases :-)
> 
> Nice ... :) I didn't know that mxDateTime has support for Julian Date.

It also implements the TJD that's sometimes used in the US (the NIST
definition of it):

>>> mx.DateTime.DateTimeFrom('1.1.4004 BCE').tjd
-1006.0
>>> mx.DateTime.DateTimeFrom('1.1.4004 BCE').tjd_myriad
26
>>> mx.DateTime.DateTimeFromTJD(-1006.0, 26)
<mx.DateTime.DateTime object for '-4003-01-01 00:00:00.00' at 2b81d4a58558>

And has support for the Julian calendar:

>>> mx.DateTime.JulianDateTime(1752, 9, 2).Gregorian()
<mx.DateTime.DateTime object for '1752-09-13 00:00:00.00' at 2b81d4a6eb88>

which is sometimes handy for historical dates:

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

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