GNU bug report logs - #6897
date -d '1991-04-14 +1 day' fails

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From: "Voelker, Bernhard" <bernhard.voelker <at> siemens-enterprise.com>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> CS.UCLA.EDU>
Cc: "6897 <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <6897 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>, Alan Curry <pacman-cu <at> kosh.dhis.org>, 李嘉鹏 <lijpbasin <at> 126.com>
Subject: bug#6897: date -d '1991-04-14 +1 day' fails
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:22:24 +0200

On 08/24/10 10:04, Eggert, Paul wrote:

> On 08/24/10 00:23, Voelker, Bernhard wrote:
>
>> BTW: This example looks different here:
>> 
>>   $ TZ=Pacific/Kwajalein date -d 1993-08-20
>>   Sat Aug 21 00:00:00 MHT 1993
>> 
>>   $ date --version
>>   date (GNU coreutils) 8.5
>>   Packaged by Cygwin (8.5-2)
>>   ...
>> 
>> Why?
>
> Haven't a clue.  Perhaps you can debug it?  I get the
> correct answer (i.e., there was no such date) on both
> RHEL 5 with my own-built coreutils 8.5, and with
> Ubuntu 10.04 with its standard-issue coreutils 7.4.

Unfortunately, I'm currently quite busy.
I've sent a report to cygwin <at> cygwin.com:
http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2010-08/msg00745.html


> Date arithmetic is pretty esoteric, after all.
> What is one month after 31 January, for example?

yes, sometimes it's not too important to care
about tomorrow ... but sometimes it is ;-)

> I'm becoming more inclined to say that GNU date
> shouldn't be doing date arithmetic at all.

I think it should - the point is that the base for
such date arithmetic must be valid. And since 1991-04-14
is a valid date in the OPs timezone, date should IMO
return the 15th for "1991-04-14 +1 day" - as Alan wrote.

Have a nice day,
Berny

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