[whatwg] Time element, typographical error, and UTC

Gerard Ashton ashtongj at comcast.net
Sat Oct 25 16:52:59 PDT 2008


The part of the spec at
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/infrastructure.h
tml#date-or-time-string
in the "2.4.4.2 Vaguer moments in time" section contains a typographical
error. In this phrase:

"If second is not a number in the range 0 ? minute < 60, then the string is
invalid, abort these steps. "

the word "minute" should be replaced by "second".

Also, it is quite confusing to have times constantly being refered to as UTC
times, and yet find the following phrase in "2.4.4.1 Specific moments in
time":

"If second is not a number in the range 0 ? second < 60, then fail. (The
value
 60 and 61 are not allowed: leap seconds cannot be represented by datetime
values.) "

Where the time element is described, at
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-seman
tics.html#the-time-element
the description of the second used is unclear. I infer from the description
that the value
of the time element is the number of UT milliseconds since 1970-01-01 00:00
UTC.
The distinction being that UTC only applies to the initial epoch, 1970-01-01
00:00 UTC.
After the epoch, time is counted in universal time (UT), with no leap
seconds allowed
(that is, a seconds value of 60.500 violates the spec).

Am I on the right track? Should the spec spell this out, or provide a
hyperlink
to a location where it is spelled out?

Gerry




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