The seconds problem - summarized?

[Dar Scott]

On Thursday, April 15, 2004, at 09:45 PM, SimPLsol at aol.com wrote:

>      Dar, your gmt is different from my gmt. I believe that, by 
> definition,
> gmt does NOT accommodate time zones and daylight saving time. If the 
> GMT is
> 10:29 in Greenwich, then the GMT time at that instant is 10:29 in 
> Wapello, Iowa;
> Mt. Maunganui, New Zealand; and Katmandu, Nepal. The fact that GMT is 
> constant
> allow sailors to compute longitude by comparing GMT to local (sun) 
> time. The
> ability to access GMT seconds would solve the problem I presented - 
> and others
> listed since. I'll come back to this below.

Right!!  What you say is what I have been saying; there is no 
difference.

I think you are catching on.

>      1. Is gmtSeconds the answer?

We already have the seconds() function to return the date/time in 
seconds.  GMT.

Maybe you are still missing this.

If you are using 'convert' to/from the seconds representation of a 
date/time, that is also GMT seconds.

BUT, remember, the 'convert' command uses your local system settings, 
time zone and daylight savings.  If you don't want those considered 
then don't use the 'convert' command or use the method that Jacque 
suggested.

Dar Scott