Subject: Re: bug#8357: coreutils bug in date

From: Heikki Orsila <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 09:27:28 +0300

On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 06:04:37PM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
> Thank you for your bug report.  However I this is not a bug in date
> but a misunderstanding of how relative times and DST interact.
> ...
>      The string `tomorrow' is worth one day in the future (equivalent to
>   `day'), the string `yesterday' is worth one day in the past (equivalent
>   to `day ago').
> 
> So 'yesterday' or '24 hours ago' are equivalent.  These are exactly 24
> hours ago or 86400 seconds.  This is a critical point in your problem.

I see the problem, but IMO, the definition of yesterday should be changed
or there should be a new definition.

What about defining new units: 'calday', 'calyesterday', 'caltomorrow'? 
For example, $(date -d '1 calday ago' '+%F')? These would count actual 
calendar days rather than relative time (in units of 24 hours)?

Yes I know there is a work around in the doc you provided (thanks for that).

Heikki Orsila