time: MarshalJSON() throws error on negative years #7566
Description
by verdverm:
go version devel +2bce43d48503 Mon Mar 17 12:07:30 2014 -0700 linux/amd64 What steps reproduce the problem? try to MarshalJSON a negative date (i.e. negative year) http://play.golang.org/p/wwfjigrteu What happened? Time.MarshalJSON throws an error from a check on the year range [0-9999] It is if statement in MarshalJSON that produces the error https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/src/pkg/time/time.go#936 This seems artificial, since I remember reading somewhere (which I can't find now...), that Go's date can go back as far as 4000 something BC What should have happened instead? A negative date should be produced, in accordance with RFC-3339. The play link shows that the RFC3339 format produces the correct output. I think just the check needs to be modified or removed. This is the same for MarshalText. https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/src/pkg/time/time.go#953 Please provide any additional information below. I figure it's about time, pardon the unintentional pun, that I give back to the Go community. So I'd like to fix the issue as well, if that's ok with you all.