[leafnode-list] [1.9.52.rel] Bug in date-format?

Matthias Andree matthias.andree at gmx.de
Wed Apr 7 14:51:39 CEST 2004


Martin Klaiber schrieb am 2004-04-07:

> perhaps there is a bug in the format of the date-Header? The timezone
> seems to be wrong.

Deliberately so. On Sunday morning (March 28), short after the DST
switch, the gmtoff() function was found to be faulty and got dropped.
All time arithmetics were changed to use GMT unless otherwise mandated
by standards, for anything other requires one to jump hoops to get the
offset right in the vicinity of DST switchovers, introduces ambiguities
- for instance, some NNTP arguments do not contain time zone
information; when you're getting 041031 023456 - what time will that be:
2:34 A or 2:34 B?

The function that generated the Date: was a user of the removed gmtoff()
function, I wouldn't have had the time to thoroughly test a patch on a
variety of systems for correctness, libc bugs and the like. It was
easier to generate the Date: header in GMT and use a negative sign to
mark "time zone information not given". Testing such a patch thorougly
means switching off NTP, all automatic services, all daemons, and
twisting the system clock. I don't have the time to do such things.

I'm willing to take patches that are a) portable to SysV (Solaris 7+
should suffice), BSD (all supported OpenBSD sources) and Linux (Debian,
SuSE, Mandrake, Gentoo) and b) correct, with proof. Other than that, a
fix will have to wait approximately two months or longer.

Workaround: have your newsreader create the Date: header.

> 1.9.51.rel:
>    Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 11:12:19 +0200
> 
> 1.9.52.rel:
>    Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 09:10:20 -0000

-- 
Matthias Andree

Encrypt your mail: my GnuPG key ID is 0x052E7D95



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