From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Dec 30 15:05:11 1995 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id PAA23232 for questions-outgoing; Sat, 30 Dec 1995 15:05:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from nieuws.IAEhv.nl (nieuws.IAEhv.nl [192.87.208.4]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA23226 for ; Sat, 30 Dec 1995 15:05:05 -0800 (PST) Received: by nieuws.IAEhv.nl (8.6.12/1.63) id AAA04457; Sun, 31 Dec 1995 00:05:03 +0100 X-Disclaimer: iaehv.nl is a public access UNIX system and cannot be held responsible for the opinions of its individual users. Received: by adv.IAEhv.nl (8.6.11/1.63) id AAA05669; Sun, 31 Dec 1995 00:01:16 +0100 From: Arjan.deVet@adv.IAEhv.nl (Arjan de Vet) Message-Id: <199512302301.AAA05669@adv.IAEhv.nl> Subject: Upcoming leap second 1996-01-01 To: questions@freebsd.org Date: Sun, 31 Dec 1995 00:01:16 +0100 (MET) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk Last year, on July 1st 1994, some accounting scripts of mine did strange things because of a leap second the previous day which made that day 86401 seconds instead of 86400. I think I was using FreeBSD 1.1 at that time. At January 1st, 1996 there will be another leap second. I started checking some things in order to avoid the same problems this time, using FreeBSD 2.0.5 now. I did some tests and it appears that FreeBSD now uses POSIX' idea of time_t values, i.e., it does not support leap seconds and the internal clock should be adjusted with -1 second on 1996-1-1 00:00:00 UTC. I understand from RFC1305 (NTP) that this will be done automatically because I'm using NTP. Am I correct? Did FreeBSD 1.1 not use the POSIX idea of time_t values, i.e., it was counting the real number of seconds since 1970-1-1 including the leap seconds? That could explain why my scripts failed then because they relied on a day being 86400 seconds and not 86401 seconds. Happy New Year! Arjan -- Arjan de Vet (IAE) Internet Access Eindhoven (IAE) (home) URL: http://www.IAEhv.nl/iae/people/devet/