Re: Bug in 'date'???

[Jim Meyering]

JP Vossen <address@hidden> wrote:
> Am I doing something really stupid here?  Should date accept the "a" or "p"
> shorthand?  It seems to me it would be better if it failed instead of
> producing output that is *almost* correct...
>
> /root# date -d "3/1/02 11:59pm"               Correct
> Fri Mar  1 23:59:00 EST 2002
>
> /root# date -d "3/1/02 11:59p"                Not
> Fri Mar  1 03:59:00 EST 2002
>
> /root# date -d "3/1/02 11:59 p"               Not
> Fri Mar  1 03:59:00 EST 2002

It does that because A-Z are recognized as military time zone names.
See lib/getdate.y's military_table array.

> /root# date -d "3/1/02 11:59 pm"      Correct
> Fri Mar  1 23:59:00 EST 2002
>
> /root# date -d "3/1/02 11:59a"                Not
> Fri Mar  1 07:59:00 EST 2002