This and other RFCs are available on the web at
http://dev.perl.org/rfc/
=head1 TITLE
Standardize ALL Perl platforms on UNIX epoch
=head1 VERSION
Maintainer: Nathan Wiger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 14 Aug 2000
Last-Modified: 12 Sep 2000
Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Number: 99
Version: 3
Status: Developing
=head1 ABSTRACT
Currently, internal time in Perl is maintained via C<time>, which is
highly system-dependent. On some systems, this is relative to the UNIX
epoch, while others use their own epochs (MacPerl uses 1904, for
example).
All versions of Perl on all platforms should maintain time both
internally and externally as seconds since the UNIX epoch (00:00:00 01
Jan 1970 UTC).
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Time is a dicey issue. While everyone disagrees on what the "right"
epoch is to use, everyone generally agrees that time synchronization
across different versions of Perl is a good thing.
The UNIX epoch is already a widely-established standard and seems as
good as any. This has the added benefit that most users will see no
change, since most users use a version of Perl which is already based on
the UNIX epoch.
=head1 IMPLEMENTATION
A simplistic Perl 5 implementation of this can be found as Time::Unix
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/N/NW/NWIGER/Time-Unix-1.02.tar.gz
The C<time> core function must be changed to return the number of
seconds since the UNIX epoch on ALL platforms. Note this behavior is
inconsistent with previous versions of C<time> and must be noted clearly
in the documentation.
In addition, a C<systime> function should be added which provides access
to the native epoch/system time. For simplification, it might be best if
this C<systime> function remain the basis for other library-related
functions, such as C<stat>, C<lstat>, and so on, which typically rely on
native system time.
An alternative to C<systime>, proposed by Chaim Frenkel, is to have a
C<time> object which is magical yet walks and talks like a number (much
like the C<date> objects proposed in RFC 48). In the author's opinion,
either method is quite suitable (in fact I tend to like Chaim's idea a
lot).
=head1 CHANGES
Version 2:
1. Added extra implementation notes
2. Wrote a I<very> simple Perl 5 implementation
Version 1 of this RFC was entitled
"Maintain internal time in Modified Julian (not epoch)".
=head1 REFERENCES
RFC 48: Replace localtime() and gmtime() with date() and utcdate()
http://www.mail-archive.com/perl6-language-datetime%40perl.org/msg00001.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/perl6-language-datetime%40perl.org/msg00002.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/perl6-language-datetime%40perl.org/msg00025.html
