RFC: Timestamps/timezones proposal

[Nathan Buchanan]

Hi!
On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 4:04 PM, Charles Day <cedayiv at gmail.com> wrote:

> OK, here's an idea. I'm interested in seeing the reaction. Maybe it's
> stupid, maybe not.


I havn't looked at the time code used in gnucash, so whatever I say is
entirely as an observer here. Generally I like the idea, though I don't know
the work involved.

>
>
> 1. Store transaction timestamps in UTC.

This seems sane to me. I would assume they'd be stored as ISO8601 strings or
as seconds from the epoch (though that's somewhat less readable). In theory,
you could store it as any ISO8601 string (similar to what we have now, I
think), but this would only indicate a "point in time". The timezone, while
useful in converting to UTC, would otherwise be meaningless.

>
> 2. Set a timezone for each account.

ok.

What happens when the user changes an account's timezone? Do all the
timestamps for that account get updated? Or do the timestamps remain the
same, but the time displayed potentially changes?

Also, how would we deal with a transfer from an account A in timezone A to
an account B in timezone B? What time (hour) would get assigned? Then what
happens when the user decides to change the timezone for account A?

We would simply have to decide on these things and document them clearly.

>
> 3. In account registers, the transaction date is displayed according to
> that
> account's timezone.
> 4. In account registers, entering/altering a transaction date is always
> done
> in terms of that account's timezone.

sounds good.

>
> 5. Add report options allowing the user to pick a reporting time and
> timezone

ok.

>
> 6. Allow users to specify the time of day for transactions. (Perhaps
> optional.)

nice, but would probably not get used way to much - we would need to pick a
sane default (which we would have to do anyway)

Nathan

>
>
> Suppose this was already done... How would it help you out or screw you up?
>
> I have accounts in several timezones, and I can see a few ways that this
> would help me already compared to the status quo. For example, as I move
> around the globe, altering my computer's timezone wouldn't affect how
> transactions are displayed
>
> Cheers,
> Charles
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>



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