Apps / Leap Second Lab

Leap Second Lab

TAI, UTC, GPS, Unix and UT1 on one timeline, and what 23:59:60 does to your code.

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What it does

An interactive lab on leap seconds and the bugs they cause. A timeline plots atomic time, GPS, Unix time and Earth's rotation against everyday UTC since 1972, and lets you project what happens once leap seconds stop. Compare how servers handle the extra second at 23:59:60, by stepping the clock back or by smearing it, and see the reordered logs and backwards clocks that result. A bench shows how common date libraries and a database handle ten edge cases, and four fix-the-bug exercises check your code with hidden tests.

Good to know

The library results were recorded from earlier runs, not run live.

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