Re: Date/Time Classes

From: John (EBo) David (ebo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-03-22 11:33:38

> Speaking of implementation independent timing classes reminded me that I
> will very shortly be needing some way of representing dates and times in a
> project I am working on. Does anyone have any recomendations? This is the
> sort of library I would have thought would be ideal for boost.

Sometime back I was upgrading and developing automated testing software
for both command line and GUI based programs and I needed date and time
classes for a number of issues including Y2K compliance.  It has been a
number of years since then, but I think I can remember a couple of
pointers and suggestions concerning date/time issues.  

For starters, search around for date/time classes amongst the
astronomers and physicists.  There is a number of classes, libraries and
code snippets that are floating around.  The nice thing about their code
is that they *really* do care to get the leap nano-second and 10,000
year adjustments correct.  Next, check the source code base from the US
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).  They provide,
amongst other wonderful things, the software to do time coordination
amongst the atomic clocks.  Another advantage about their stuff is that
it is, or at least was, in the public domain and should be transferable
to Boost without copyright infringement worries.

also with the timing class stuff...  you might want to take a look at
NIST's Enhanced Machine Control (EMC) code which does real-time motor
control...

  EBo --