Add a date library

[sparkprime]

Code to convert to/from tuples like {year: x, month:x, ... seconds: x } into textual / other structured representations (seconds since epoch, etc).

[sparkprime]

@oconnorr

[oconnorr]

Do you want the Jsonnet output to be dependent on or independent of the contents of the Olson time zone database that happens to be installed on the local system?

If independent, then you cannot do date/time conversions based on time zone (you are restricted to using UTC offsets), but you could write it in Jsonnet.

If dependent, then Jsonnet isn't hermetic and some operations need to be built-in.

[sparkprime]

I can't remember who initially suggested this or what they wanted it for. But, yes I think it would have to be UTC and static offsets only, otherwise it would no-longer be hermetic.

[davidzchen]

Could we make use of cctz for this?

[oconnorr]

Using cctz, or any other tool for dealing with civil time, would make Jsonnet output dependent on the contents of /usr/share/zoneinfo whose content varies from machine to machine and from month to month.