tai

Package tai provides support for International Atomic Time.

Usage

TAI values may be created directly,

t := tai.TAI{Sec: 123456789, Asec: 300 * tai.Millisecond}

To break a TAI value into is constituent Calendar parts:

g := t.AsGregorian()
// g.Year
// g.Month
// g.Day
// g.Hour
// g.Minute
// g.Sec

Gregorian is the calendar system used by most of the world.

Formatting

fmt.Println(tai.Now().Format(tai.RFC3339Micro)
// 2021-09-03T22:03:56.991894Z

Stdlib compatibility

Convert to and from stdlib time values

tai.FromTime(t.AsTime())

Compatible with the same UNIX notation as stdlib,

tai.Unix(secs, nsecs).Unix() // back to sec/nsec

More

See pkg.go.dev.

FAQ

1. Why would I want to use this?

If you deal with the TAI timekeeping system, there are not (as of late 2021) any alternative packages for Go. TAI time is continuous and never repeats, properties that the Universal Time system used by most computers do not have.

2. Why not stdlib time?

An alternative implementation of this package would utilize the stdlib time package and skew the values by the relevant number of leapseconds. However, stdlib time has a more finite range compared to the 292 billion years of pkg tai.

Additionally, support for non-UTC timezones is needless complexity, as TAI time only exists in the UTC timezone. As well, the nanosecond resolution of stdlib time is restrictive for some applications interested in continuous time systems, for which the attosecond resolution of this package is a tremendous improvement.

3. Is the package threadsafe?

Yes. The leapsecond table is protected by a RWMutex. This limits ultimate concurrent performance when converting to/from stdlib Time values. Nothing else in the package is sensitive to concurrent execution.

4. Why use global state for the leapsecond table?

The only significant benefit to a non-global leapsecond table is the ability to use sharding to improve performance. The performance of this package is sufficient that additional speed would likely not be a significant gain to any program. A non-global leapsecond table must be duplicated N times over which creates an enhanced opportunity for inconsistent state and incorrect programs.

5. Will there be more features to mimic a larger portion of the time package?

The time package is privileged with runtime hooks for some of its features, e.g. timers. The stdlib has a greater variety of serialization options for e.g. non-allocating approaches. If desired, please implement them with a pull request.

The various methods for accessing parts of a time's representation such as the weekday may be added at a later date. It is unclear how valuable these are when AsGregorian exists.

6. How correct and bug free is this package?

There is a fairly complete set of unit tests that lead to the author's confidence that the package works properly. If you find a bug, please make an issue so it can be fixed. The "Hammer" test ensures that all dates from the Julian epoch (-4716) to the year 10,000 are understood correctly. This is over 5.7 million test cases. An additional million fuzz test cases are run, as well as specific tests for interesting or key moments.

7. Why have a format syntax that is incompatible with Stdlib time?

Stdlib time is the ugly duckling in this respect. pkg tai is more in keeping with other similar tools.

8. How stable is this package? Why isn't it 1.0?

The core mechanics or algorithms of this package are stable. The Tai/Gregorian interfaces will not see a reduction in the scope of public methods. Some more internal functions for Calendric calculations may be made private in the future, which would present a breaking change. V1.0 is deferred for this reason.