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Re: Date formatting.

From Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups comp.os.linux.misc
Subject Re: Date formatting.
Date 2025-09-29 19:40 +0000
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <10benah$37ddd$5@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References (14 earlier) <10bb1s4$29c4m$1@dont-email.me> <20250929091131.00000dc4@gmail.com> <FIyCQ.112782$DQYd.18287@fx16.iad> <jvqqqlxnbk.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> <10befmu$33rad$1@dont-email.me>

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On Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:30:06 +0100, Pancho wrote:

> I like YYYYMMDD too, but the real epiphany moment for me was when I
> realised that all dates should be handled internally UTC, Unix time,
> and that output format, display, is just a user preference.

As far as I can tell, it was Unix that pioneered the idea of maintaining 
system time as UTC (actually GMT in the early days), and converting back 
and forth as necessary for human interpretation. Other systems continued 
to resist the idea for decades afterwards. Windows still doesn’t do it 
today. macOS --- who can tell?

> It is so obvious, and yet I worked on so many systems that messed up
> date conversions/different time zones.

All too common, on systems like Microsoft Windows that maintain system 
time as local time, to forget that they have done the daylight-saving 
switch once, and do it a second time. That kind of bug can’t happen when 
system time is maintained as UTC.

There is an article on Bitsavers which mentions that IBM mainframes needed 
to be rebooted to switch daylight saving on and off.

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      Re: Favorite Font Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2025-09-28 14:03 -0700
        Re: Favorite Font Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-28 22:51 +0000
          Re: Favorite Font candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-09-30 18:30 +0000
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              Re: Favorite Font rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-09-30 20:04 +0000
            Re: Favorite Font Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-30 22:46 +0000
        Re: Favorite Font Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> - 2025-10-04 09:31 +0000
          Re: Favorite Font Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2025-10-04 10:08 -0700
            Re: Favorite Font Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-04 21:10 +0000
      Re: Favorite Font John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2025-09-29 09:11 -0700
        Re: Favorite Font Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2025-09-29 16:45 +0000
          Date formatting. "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-09-29 19:07 +0200
            Re: Date formatting. Pancho <Pancho.Jones@protonmail.com> - 2025-09-29 18:30 +0100
              Re: Date formatting. Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-29 19:40 +0000
                Re: Date formatting. "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-09-29 21:52 +0200
              Re: Date formatting. "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-09-29 21:45 +0200
              Re: Date formatting. rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-09-30 02:08 +0000
            Re: Date formatting. c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-09-29 23:15 -0400
          Re: Favorite Font rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-09-29 18:55 +0000

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