Re: Ada Calendar oddity <was Re: C date package>

[Geoff Bull <gbull@acenet.com.au>]

Charles Hixson wrote:
>
> It seems to me that it is a mistake to include seconds, much less any smaller
> unit, in the calendar date.

Astronomers and real time programers, e.g., might not agree
with you. Although, of course, the latter group are catered
for with Ada.Real_Time.

>  I'm not sure that minutes is justified, but if

Depends on what requirement you are trying to meet.

> one uses a 64 bit number then it wouldn't seem to cause any problems.

Elsewhere it has already been stated that no more than 32 bits
is essential (I have no opinion on this0.

> Perhaps Calendar and Time could be two separate packages, each using a 64-bit
> number as their base, one based on days and the other based on
> ?nano?-seconds.

This is perhaps not a bad idea, because seconds and days are
different concepts, one being a fixed period of time, the other
being the variable amount of time for one rotation of the earth
(either wrt to the sun or the stars).

>  Or time could be defined with the top 32 bits being ...

Of course it would be defined as a private type.