Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!usc!ucsd!nosc!crash!orbit!marilyn!shawn
From: shawn@marilyn.UUCP (Shawn P. Stanley)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUCP status files and wierd dates - revisted.
Message-ID: <101@marilyn.UUCP>
Date: 23 Nov 90 04:21:03 GMT
References: <736@dynasys.UUCP> <803@sci34hub.UUCP> <754@dynasys.UUCP>
Reply-To: shawn@marilyn.marilyn.mn.org (Shawn P. Stanley)
Organization: Litfal
Lines: 29

In article <754@dynasys.UUCP> jessea@dynasys.UUCP () writes:
>WHY is this date used?  WHY can't the beginning of the year be used instead?
>It seems like a waste of resources to compute a date from the number of
>seconds given for a twenty year old date - especially if so many programs
>use this format.

That date format is not only used in status files; it's also used for
directory entries and file transfers.  Because of this, only one set of
functions is really necessary for converting the date/time to a
displayable format.

Since this common date/time format is so widely used, it's easy to
recognize as such.  And having a common format is helpful when transporting
data across dissimilar machines.

If one wished to "optimize" the date/time calculation for outputting
status dates in a displayable format, one could simply subtract a constant
from the value, thus reducing the number to something that would take less
time to calculate, theoretically.  However, you should note that to store
even a single year's worth of seconds still requires something larger than
a short int.  The time saved in division/modula operations would be
practically unnoticeable, given that the same number of bits would be
used in the operations.

The only real waste in resources is the extra one or two characters saved
for the ASCII representation of the number.
--
Shawn P. Stanley         shawn@marilyn.marilyn.mn.org
bungia!marilyn!shawn     {rosevax,crash}!orbit!marilyn!shawn