Hi again, Forgive my honesty, but this mail list looks kind of dead...Well, regarding my previous doubts, only the fourth remains - the others I already figure them out. But - without being rushed - I think there are major problems here. I sent an email yestarday telling about some incongruences in the calculations of DST for Portugal in 1979 - every sites where I did the calculations either gave wrong results or ambiguous ones. At first, I thought that the problem could be the database - but it isn't, now that I decode it. I think there are too much confusion in the modules that use that database, and others like DateTime - in this last one, for some reason, the julian day is calculated adding the utc_days to the JD equivalent to the 2nd day of AD. This is not very logic, but hey: so we must subtract 1 day to utc_days... For the websites I used to test DST and Time Zone for Portugal are all wrong or ambiguous, it means that there are errors in the routines - but I insist: I don't want to be rushed. When I speak in ambiguity, I mean this ( I posted in an astronomy forum the problem, with the title "Should we end up with DST?"):
«A peculiar situation ( every time DST ends ) : DST ( = UTC+1 here ) ended, for example, in 1979 - in Portugal - the 30th September at 2 AM - it lasted until 1h59m59s AM and, one second later, corresponded automatically to 1 AM ( UTC 0 ). Ok, that's fair. But now, let's supose that we know of an event - of any kind, important or not - that ocurred at 1h30m AM in that day. Which system do we apply to know the exact UTC of the event? It could have happened during DST, 30 minutes before the change of time - so, since DST was active, it would have happened at UTC 0h30m AM ; but it could have happened after the change, 30 minutes after DST ended - UTC 1h30 AM ( since the correction was made ). So, what will it be? Shall we throw a coin?» I would like to know other opinions, but maybe we should sign a petition to end up with DST worlwide :) Kind Regards, Rui Miguel Fernandes Porto - Portugal
