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

Jim Fulton jim@zope.com
Tue, 26 Feb 2002 15:53:01 -0500

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> Does this imply leap second hell, or will we > simply be vague about expectations? IMO, leap seconds should be ignored. Time stands still during a leap second. Consider this a BDFL pronouncement if you wish. :-) > I'd also like to see simple access methods for year, > month, day, hours, minutes, and seconds, The timetuple() method provides access to all of these simultaneously. Isn't that enough?

From a minimalist point of view, yet, but from a usability point of view, no.

t.year() could be spelled as t.timetuple()[0].

Yes, but t.year() is a lot more readable.

I expect that usually you'd request several of these together anyway, in order to do some fancy formatting, so the timetuple() approach makes sense.

I find the time tuples to be really inconvenient. I always have to slice off the parts I don't want, which I find annoying.

Hm, now that I mention the extra parts, it seems kind of silly to make implementors of the type come up with weekday, julian day, and a daylight-savings flag. This time format is really biased by the C time library, which is fine for a module that wraps the C library but seems a bit silly for a standard date-time interface.

> with date parts > being one based and time parts being zero based.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Years, months, and days should start from 1. Hours, minutes and seconds should start from 0.

One confusion I often have with time tuples is that I know too much about C's time struct, which numbers months from 0 and which has years since 1900.

Jim

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