C
@vic said:OK, you managed to half-convince me. I guess
the idea that timestamps represent the time in seconds elapsed since the
epoch is implanted too deeply in my brain :-) So what happens to the
unix time when there is a leap second, does it just skip a beat? When there is a leap second, unix time repeats. That is, the leap second itself and the normal second immediately following the leap second will have the same Unix timestamp. If you actually need sub-second accuracy in timestamps including over leap seconds, Unix time is not an option, because a timestamp generated in that two-second window from the start of the leap second to the end of the following second is not unique; it could represent either of two points in time. Also, were there ever to be a negative leap second -- that is, a second removed from the day -- Unix time would skip over that second, and thus there would be values of the timestamp that didn't correspond to any actual time.