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@@ -1034,8 +1034,19 @@ title="International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service">IERS</abbr>
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Bulletins</a> contains official publications of the International
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Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, which decides when leap
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seconds occur. The <code><abbr>tz</abbr></code> code and data support leap seconds
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-via an optional "<code>right</code>" configuration, as opposed to the
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-default "<code>posix</code>" configuration.</li>
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+via an optional "<code>right</code>" configuration where a computer's internal
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+<code>time_t</code> integer clock counts every <abbr>TAI</abbr> second,
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+as opposed to the default "<code>posix</code>" configuration
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+where the internal clock ignores leap seconds.
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+The two configurations agree for timestamps starting with 1972-01-01 00:00:00
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+UTC (<code>time_t</code> 63 072 000) and diverge for
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+timestamps starting with <code>time_t</code> 78 796 800,
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+which corresponds to the first leap second
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+1972-06-30 23:59:60 UTC in the "<code>right</code>" configuration, and to
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+1972-07-01 00:00:00 UTC in the "<code>posix</code>" configuration.
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+In practice the two configurations also agree for timestamps before
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+1972 even though the historical situation is messy, partly because
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+neither UTC nor TAI is well-defined for sufficiently-old timestamps.</li>
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<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/time/smear">Leap Smear</a>
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discusses how to gradually adjust <abbr>POSIX</abbr> clocks near a
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leap second so that they disagree with <abbr>UTC</abbr> by at most a
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