mktime, how to handle dates before 01-01-1970 ?
Ben Finney
ben+python at benfinney.id.au
Thu Oct 8 18:36:31 EDT 2009
John Yeung <gallium.arsenide at gmail.com> writes:
> I think the choice of epoch is not a big deal, once you pick one far
> enough back. Ben Finney's suggestion to use 4004 BCE is not
> appreciably different (computationally) from JDN. (Though I will say
> that the Wikipedia link he provided doesn't mention 4004 BCE, and if
> anything suggests using 1 CE as the epoch.)
My apologies, I gave the wrong year. I was intending to refer to the
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_date> system, which begins at
the year −4712 (4713 BCE).
This has the advantages of:
* clearly covering spans of human history more recent than ancient
civilisations
* having a long-recognised standard specification
* being commonly used in computing (for astronomy and other scientific
computing applications)
* making arithmetic on dates simple (it uses a year zero, making the
time line an uninterrupted number line)
--
\ “When we talk to God, we're praying. When God talks to us, |
`\ we're schizophrenic.” —Jane Wagner, via Lily Tomlin, 1985 |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
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