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TIME2POSIX(3)         DragonFly Library Functions Manual         TIME2POSIX(3)


NAME

     time2posix, posix2time -- convert seconds since the Epoch


LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)


SYNOPSIS

     #include <time.h>

     time_t
     time2posix(time_t t);

     time_t
     posix2time(time_t t);


DESCRIPTION

     IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 (``POSIX.1'') legislates that a time_t value of
     536457599 shall correspond to "Wed Dec 31 23:59:59 UTC 1986."  This
     effectively implies that POSIX time_t's cannot include leap seconds and,
     therefore, that the system time must be adjusted as each leap occurs.

     If the time package is configured with leap-second support enabled,
     however, no such adjustment is needed and time_t values continue to
     increase over leap events (as a true `seconds since...' value).  This
     means that these values will differ from those required by POSIX by the
     net number of leap seconds inserted since the Epoch.

     Typically this is not a problem as the type time_t is intended to be
     (mostly) opaque--time_t values should only be obtained-from and passed-to
     functions such as time(3), localtime(3), mktime(3) and difftime(3).
     However, IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 (``POSIX.1'') gives an arithmetic
     expression for directly computing a time_t value from a given date/time,
     and the same relationship is assumed by some (usually older)
     applications.  Any programs creating/dissecting time_t's using such a
     relationship will typically not handle intervals over leap seconds
     correctly.

     The time2posix() and posix2time() functions are provided to address this
     time_t mismatch by converting between local time_t values and their POSIX
     equivalents.  This is done by accounting for the number of time-base
     changes that would have taken place on a POSIX system as leap seconds
     were inserted or deleted.  These converted values can then be used in
     lieu of correcting the older applications, or when communicating with
     POSIX-compliant systems.

     The time2posix() function is single-valued.  That is, every local time_t
     corresponds to a single POSIX time_t.  The posix2time() function is less
     well-behaved: for a positive leap second hit the result is not unique,
     and for a negative leap second hit the corresponding POSIX time_t does
     not exist so an adjacent value is returned.  Both of these are good
     indicators of the inferiority of the POSIX representation.

     The following table summarizes the relationship between time_t and its
     conversion to, and back from, the POSIX representation over the leap
     second inserted at the end of June, 1993.

     DATE        TIME        T      X=time2posix(T)    posix2time(X)
     93/06/30    23:59:59    A+0    B+0                A+0
     93/06/30    23:59:60    A+1    B+1                A+1 or A+2
     93/07/01    00:00:00    A+2    B+1                A+1 or A+2
     93/07/01    00:00:01    A+3    B+2                A+3

     A leap second deletion would look like...

     DATE        TIME        T      X=time2posix(T)    posix2time(X)
     ??/06/30    23:59:58    A+0    B+0                A+0
     ??/07/01    00:00:00    A+1    B+2                A+1
     ??/07/01    00:00:01    A+2    B+3                A+2

           [Note: posix2time(B+1) => A+0 or A+1]

     If leap-second support is not enabled, local time_t's and POSIX time_t's
     are equivalent, and both time2posix() and posix2time() degenerate to the
     identity function.


SEE ALSO

     difftime(3), localtime(3), mktime(3), time(3)

DragonFly 3.7                  October 19, 2008                  DragonFly 3.7

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