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[–] 4 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

time always goes forward

It not always goes and not always forward. I think you need metric time(TAI) instread.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    UTC always goes forward regardless of the timezone and local time. That is why you should use it. To take my EPG situation above, I stored program start / end times in UTC so they would render properly even if DST kicked in or not during the middle of the program.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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..

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

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

    Which is how most systems handle leap seconds.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    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.

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