bug#72023: feature request for date(1): strptime-style format string when you don't want date to guess

[Paul Eggert]

I'm dubious. I've never had much luck with strptime, as in practice it 
has its own glitches that are even worse than what 'date' currently 
uses. For example, it's dicey in non-C locales, and it mishandles time 
zones and daylight saving transitions even in the C locale.

That being said, if someone can write the code and documentation and 
test cases it might be a good thing to have - particularly if some other 
'date' implementation is already doing that sort of thing and people 
have had good experience with it.