Lance W. Latham - Standard C Date/Time Library - Home Page


SCDTL started as a single book, designed to address the problem of providing an integrated software toolkit for handling the single most important AND overlooked class of software in existence - technical chronology. The project has since branched into multiple implementations in various languages, and has expanded into new areas of research. Join us!

  1. Introduction.

    2. The table of contents for the text:
    Chapter 1. About the Book.
    Chapter 2. Background.
    Chapter 3. Data Structures.
    Chapter 4. Basic Header Files.
    Chapter 5. The Basic Functions.
    Chapter 6. Days of Observance Functions.
    Chapter 7. Proleptic Calendar Functions.
    Chapter 8. ISO Date/Time.
    Chapter 9. Specific Calendars.
    This last chapter contains solutions for about 30 calendars.

    Mars has calendars?
    An excellent test for comprehension of material is the design of a calendar for another planet.
    For Mars, a more accurate version was created after the publication in 1997 of Allison's improved figures, but was too late for the book galleys. It is available as part of the 'Volume II' material. Tom Gangale's excellent and large website complex has an image of the SCDTL text. Look for interesting discussions of the 'lost' calendars of Mars and calendars for other planets that humans might inhabit in the future.

    Link to Toke Norby's 'postal history' site.
    Applications for calendric software are many and varied. Postal cancellations are very useful for establishing an accurate chronology of events, but depend upon software to convert dates in one calendric system to dates in another.

  2. Errata for volume 1.
  3. Code and documentation for 'Volume II', released as open source.
  4. Additional project directions - standard calendar icons, calendar metrics, etc..
  5. Links to other projects that connect to SCDTL.