I don't see what the epoch has got to do with it. The TAI time system is exactly like UTC except for the leap seconds, and that, to me, seems very similar to what Perl is using.
The epoch has everything to do with it. TAI is not defined to start with 0 at Jan 1, 1970 (Unix epoch), but with the hex value 4000000000000000 for that instant in time. Perl5 uses the Unix epoch as the basis for it's time (for historical reasons). Perl6 may use TAI.
To use your example dates:
4000000004b25809 181 Fri 1972-06-30 23:59:59 +0000 4000000004b2580a 181 Fri 1972-06-30 23:59:60 +0000 4000000004b2580b 182 Sat 1972-07-01 00:00:00 +0000
The first column is the external TAI64 label, the second is the day number for that year (if I am not mistaken) and the last is the representation of the TAI time as text (demonstrating the leap second handling).
See:
http://cr.yp.to/libtai/tai64.html
for more information...
John
-- John Peacock Director of Information Research and Technology Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group 4501 Forbes Boulevard Suite H Lanham, MD 20706 301-459-3366 x.5010 fax 301-429-5748
