[CLJ-926] Instant literals do not round trip correctly

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:55:14 -0600

When using java.util.Date for instant literals (which is the default) instants do not round-trip properly during daylight savings. Here is an example:

(read-string "#inst \"2010-11-12T13:14:15.666-06:00\"")
#inst "2010-11-13T06:14:15.666+10:00"

I'm currently in Melbourne, which is normally GMT+10. However, on November 12th daylight savings is in effect, so the proper GMT offset is +11. The date above is actually using the correct local time (6:14:15) but with the wrong offset. The problem is more obvious when you attempt to round-trip the instant that was read.

user> #inst "2010-11-13T06:14:15.666+10:00"
#inst "2010-11-13T07:14:15.666+10:00"

Notice that we read 6:14am but the output was 7:14 with the same offset. Upon digging deeper the real culprit seems to be the use of String.format (through clojure.core/format) when outputting java.util.Date. Notice the following inside caldate->rfc3339

(format "#inst \"%1$tFT%1$tT.%1$tL%1$tz\"" d))

Let's compare the timezone offset in the underlying date with what is printed by %1$tz

user> (def d #inst "2010-11-13T06:14:15.666+10:00")
#'clojure.instant/d                                                                                                                                                                                         
user> (.getHours d)
7                                                                                                                                                                                                           
user> (.getTimezoneOffset d)
-660

For reference, the definition of getTimezoneOffset is

-(Calendar.get(Calendar.ZONE_OFFSET) + Calendar.get(Calendar.DST_OFFSET)) / (60 * 1000)

So far it looks good. 6am in GMT+10 becomes 7am in GMT+11. Let's see how String.format handles it though.

                                                                                               
clojure.instant> (format "%1$tz" d)
"+1000"                                                                                                                                                                                                     
clojure.instant> (format "%1$tT" d)
"07:14:15"

String.format prints the correct hour, but with the wrong offset. The recommended way for formatting dates is to use a DateFormatter.

The String.format approach appears to work properly for Calendar, but not for Date. Therefore the attached patch keeps the current
implementation for java.util.Calendar but uses SimpleDateFormat to handle java.util.Date correctly. This fixes the roundtrip problem.

Clojure JIRA

[CLJ-926] Instant literals do not round trip correctly