John Peacock schreef: > Peter J. Acklam wrote: > >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.
That's TAI64, an epoch count based on the time scale TAI. TAI 64 starts at Jan 1, 1970 (TAI) = Dec 31, 1969 23:59:xx UTC. If TAI is defined to start somewhere, it's at 01-01-01 00:00:00 TAI, or possibly 01-01-00 00:00:00 TAI, as it's an astronomical scale. TAI64 is to TAI as the Unix epoch is to UTC. By the way, the next version of DateTime::Format::Epoch will contain a TAI64 implementation. It will be on CPAN later today. Eugene
