[Python-Dev] proposal: add basic time type to the standard library (original) (raw)

Fredrik Lundh fredrik@pythonware.com
Tue, 26 Feb 2002 21:48:47 +0100

mal wrote:

> 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.

can you elaborate?

> 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) ?

the updated proposal adds hash and cmp, and the following (optional?) operations:

deltaobject = timeobject - timeobject
floatobject = float(deltaobject) # fractional seconds
timeobject = timeobject + integerobject
timeobject = timeobject + floatobject
timeobject = timeobject + deltaobject

note that "deltaobject" can be anything; the abstract type only says that if you manage to subtract one time object from another one of the same type, you get some object that you can 1) convert to a float, and 2) add to another time object.

vague, but pretty useful.

> 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 ?

Q. does mxDateTime provide separate accessors for individual members?