this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Ok, this is more unix time quirk that can't handle 24:00:00 and skipping 23:59:59.

UTC always goes forward regardless of the timezone and local time

But not unix time.

I stored program start / end times in UTC

If your program finishes in less than one seond it might report negative time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I didn't say Unix time, I said UTC. And no it won't report negative time, not unless somehow the system clock was modified while it was running..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

not unless somehow the system clock was modified while it was running..

Which is how most systems handle leap seconds.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Leap seconds still make time go forwards, not backwards. NTP clients would also resolve small time discrepancies while still advancing forwards prior to the next time sync.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Leap seconds can make time go both ways, but adding them makes time stop/go back because 24:00:00 cannot be represented as 1/86400 part of day N instead of day N+1 on major OSes. And they were only added so far.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It doesn't work like that. UTC goes forward always. Leap seconds are scheduled and known in advance. NTP time services will just smear time advancement a little to account for an additional second. Time never has to go backwards. This is how Google does it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

This is how Google does it in their datacenters, but not major OSes by default