Re: Bug in /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/HTTP/Date.pm near line 268 or 278

Tom Christiansen (tchrist@jhereg.perl.com)
Mon, 17 Mar 1997 19:34:21 -0700


The code you posted is interesting, but please let's be careful when
applying fixes.  It's more complicated than how you've portrayed
it.  I point this out because many non-anglophones, especially
Europeans, are often confused by am/pm notation as it relates
to the boundary conditions:

    MILITARY	STANDARD

    00:00	12:00pm 	(Midnight)
    00:01	12:01am
     1:00	 1:00am
    11:59	11:59am
    12:00	12:00am		(Noon)
    12:01	12:01pm
    13:00	 1:00pm
    23:59	11:59pm
    00:00	12:00pm 	(Midnight)

It's even more interesting when you start talking about days of the year.
Is midnight the last second of the old day or the first of the new one?
If memory serves, military notation, which is 0 based, would attest that
00:00 is the start of the new day, which lasts until 23:59.  Whereas in
standard notation, I believe that midnight is the last second of the
old day.  Feeding the getdate converter 12pm of today reports back
00:00:00 of tomorrow, lending credibility my beliefs.

Have fun. :-)

--tom