Text 5351, 39 rader
Skriven 2012-04-23 20:38:00 av Maurice Kinal (1:261/38.9)
     Kommentar till en text av Alexey Vissarionov
Ärende: i got got got got no time
=================================
Hey Alexey!

Current packed ftn DateTime msg header takes on the form of "23 Apr 12 
19:48:40" which not counting the NUL delimeter will always be 19 bytes.  The
generated TZUTZ kludge in my case will always be 13 bytes which includes the
required 0x01 prefix and the 0x0d suffix.  In the case of a negative utc offset
it will be 14 bytes.  Beats me why they, whoever 'they' are, would think
dropping the '+' character was a good idea but there it is.  Counting total
bytes generating (or storing) the message costs a total of 19 + 13 = 32 bytes,
33 bytes for negative people.

Given the above example the ftn DateTime in rfc-3339 format will translate to
"2012-04-23 19:48:40+00:00" and will not require a TZUTC kludge since the
information is already there.  It costs exactly 25 bytes total and is VASTLY
more useful than the ftn method no matter how one looks at it, nevermind the
byte savings per msg.

For example, suppose I recieve a msg from you in this echo with a ftn DateTime
of "24 Apr 12  01:10:38" and a TZUTC kludge showing 0400 which is possible. 
The rfc-3339 format magically becomes "2012-04-24 01:10:38+04:00" once I
convert it on my end.  In the new format the field for DateTime is untouched
and would be as shown (without the quotation marks of course) and if I pump
that value to my localtime then look what happens;

  # date --date="2012-04-24 01:10:38+04:00"
  Mon Apr 23 21:10:38 UTC 2012

Neat eh?  You've magically been transformed into UTC time without any loss to
accuracy as well as leaving the field in the new format untouched so that
others with different utc offsets can do the same relative to their date and
time.

I think rfc-3339 is a keeper.  How about you?

Life is good,
Maurice

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