RFC2: Date/Time proposal

[Christian Stimming]

Am Montag, 21. Juli 2008 20:36 schrieb Stuart D. Gathman:
> The current datafile format has a problem when the user switches
> timezones.  While the saved timestamps are restored correctly, thanks
> to the included timezone, the *dates* change.  The only work around
> at the moment is to load gnucash through a script which sets the TZ
> environment variable to a fixed value (the value used to start the
> gnucash datafile).

Yes.

> It has been proposed that gnucash use a fixed timezone internally - e.g.
> UTC, and ignore the system timezone when the user enters a date.  This is
> great (except I'd use an actual date type), and fixes the problem for
> new gnucash datafiles.  But now loading old datafiles changes the dates.
> Since the original timezone was saved, this can be "fixed" by setting the
> date to the date in the original timezone.  This loses the original
> time of day info, but then the time of day info was just a constant
> anyway.  Dates saved with a new gnucash would all have the UTC timezone.

Yes. I agree this is what we should do in the short term.

> (Although I'd just use a date type.)

Yes, this is what I agree should happen in the long term.

Christian