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

[Jim Fulton]

"M.-A. Lemburg" wrote:
> 
> 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.

That's a really bad assumption if times are used in different 
time zones.

> 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.

No, it does store something, it just doesn't say how.
There are methods for returning localtime and gmtime, so
there is (abstract) storage.

> > > 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) ?

There are a lot of semantic issues with date-time math.
Leap seconds is an example. If you store local time, are
date-time subtractions affected by daylight-savings time?
Do the calculations depend on the calendar? Do you take
into account the lost days in the switch from the Julean
to the Gregorian calendar?

I'm not really opposed to doing math, but we need to at least
recognize the fuzzyness of the semantics.
 
> > 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 ?

Yes.

Jim

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