Re: [openpgp] time representation in OpenPGP

[Kristian Fiskerstrand <[e-mail]>]

On 07/03/2016 06:49 PM, brian m. carlson wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 03, 2016 at 03:57:31PM +0200, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
>> On 07/03/2016 03:48 PM, Salz, Rich wrote:
>>> I suggest we use ASN1 generalized time (which has only a couple of
>>> bytes overhead) or ISO 8601 profiled to be like the ASN1 format:
>>> YYYY-MM-DD-HH:MM:SS.sss with fraction optional.
>>>
>>
>> ASN1 sounds complex in this case, some form of ISO8601 variant might be
>> helpful.
>>
>> Alternatively expanding the size of the value from 32 bits to 64 bits
>> might be easier to deal with for backwards compatibility reasons.
> 
> I'd strongly recommend simply using a 64-bit (signed?) integer.  It's

current is 32 bit unsigned, so it'd be unsigned still

> compact, avoids time zones (which are a source of bugs), and is the

This could be countered by specifying always using UTC, but I agree the
parsing is more complex than a simple time epoch without any obvious
benefits.

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Kristian Fiskerstrand
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Twitter: @krifisk
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