# Comparison with other Rust datetime crates This document is meant to be a comparison between Jiff and each of the other prominent open source datetime libraries for Rust. If you feel like there is a library missing from this list, please file an issue about it. I would prefer to only add libraries to this list that are being used in production or have a substantial number of users. The goal of this document is to be as _descriptive_ and _substantively complete_ as possible. For example, "Chrono has a better API design than Jiff" would be a pretty vague value judgment that someone could easily disagree with. But, "Chrono allows using a zone-aware datetime type that is `Copy` while Jiff does not" would be a factual comparison that someone might use to _support_ an opinion that Chrono's API design is better than Jiff's. In other words, this document should provide the "facts of comparison" but refrain from assigning value judgments. In terms of completeness, it is probably not realistic to expect 100% completion here. We aren't hunting for Korok Seeds. Instead, this document aims for _substantive_ completion. That is, if there's a point of difference between Jiff and another library that would likely influence someone's decision of which library to use, and can be articulated descriptively, then it should probably be in this document. The current status of this document is that it is both _incomplete_ and _biased_. That is, this first draft was written by the author of Jiff without any input from other crate maintainers. (To other crate maintainers: I welcome feedback. Even if it's just filing an issue.) Note that this document contains many code snippets. They can be tested with `cargo test --doc _documentation::comparison` from the root of this repository. ## [`chrono`](https://docs.rs/chrono) (v0.4.38) Chrono is a Rust datetime library that provides a time zone aware datetime type. For the following comparisons, a `Cargo.toml` with the following dependencies should be able to run any of the programs in this section: ```toml anyhow = "1.0.81" chrono = "0.4.38" chrono-tz = { version = "0.9.0", features = ["serde"] } jiff = { version = "0.2.0", features = ["serde"] } serde = "1.0.203" serde_json = "1.0.117" tzfile = "0.1.3" ``` ### Time zone database integration Jiff gives you automatic integration with your copy of the Time Zone Database. On Unix, it's usually found at `/usr/share/zoneinfo`. On Windows, since there is no canonical location, Jiff will depend on `jiff-tzdb` by default, which will embed the entire database into your binary. Jiff hides these details from you. For example, to convert a civil time into an absolute time in a particular time zone: ```rust use jiff::civil::date; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt = date(2024, 6, 30).at(9, 46, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; assert_eq!(zdt.to_string(), "2024-06-30T09:46:00-04:00[America/New_York]"); Ok(()) } ``` For Chrono, one recommended option is to use the [`chrono-tz`](https://docs.rs/chrono-tz) crate: ```rust use anyhow::Context; use chrono::TimeZone; use chrono_tz::America::New_York; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt = New_York.with_ymd_and_hms(2024, 6, 30, 9, 46, 0) .single() .context("invalid naive time")?; assert_eq!(zdt.to_string(), "2024-06-30 09:46:00 EDT"); Ok(()) } ``` `chrono-tz` works by embedding an entire copy of the Time Zone Database into your binary, where each time zone is represented as a Rust value that can be imported via `use`. A disadvantage of this approach is that you're reliant on `chrono-tz` updates to get the most recent time zone information. An advantage of this approach is that you never need to worry about an end user's system state. Another advantage is that this allows a `TimeZone` trait implementation to be `Copy` via a `&Tz`, and that in turn allows a `chrono::DateTime` to be `Copy`. In contrast, in Jiff, a `TimeZone` is never `Copy`. Since a `Zoned` embeds a `TimeZone`, a `Zoned` is never `Copy` either. Another recommended option is the [`tzfile`](https://docs.rs/tzfile) crate. Unlike `chrono-tz`, the `tzfile` crate will try to read time zone data from your system's copy of the Time Zone Database. ```rust use anyhow::Context; use chrono::{NaiveDate, NaiveDateTime, NaiveTime, TimeZone}; use tzfile::Tz; #[cfg(unix)] fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let tz = Tz::named("America/New_York")?; let zdt = (&tz).with_ymd_and_hms(2024, 6, 30, 9, 46, 0) .single() .context("invalid naive time")?; assert_eq!(zdt.to_string(), "2024-06-30 09:46:00 EDT"); Ok(()) } // `tzfile` exposes a platform specific API, which means // users of the crate have to deal with platform differences // themselves. #[cfg(not(unix))] fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { Ok(()) } ``` Note though that at time of writing (2024-07-11), `tzfile::Tz::named` will read and parse the corresponding time zone rules from disk on every call. Conversely, in Jiff, all time zone lookups by name are cached. This may or may not matter for your use case. ### Jiff losslessly roundtrips time zone aware datetimes In Jiff, with `serde` support enabled, one can serialize and deserialize a `Zoned` value losslessly. This means that, after deserialization, you can expect it to still perform DST arithmetic: ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, ToSpan, Zoned}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt = date(2024, 3, 10).at(1, 59, 59, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let json = serde_json::to_string_pretty(&zdt)?; assert_eq!(json, "\"2024-03-10T01:59:59-05:00[America/New_York]\""); let got: Zoned = serde_json::from_str(&json)?; assert_eq!(got.to_string(), "2024-03-10T01:59:59-05:00[America/New_York]"); let next = got.checked_add(1.minute())?; assert_eq!(next.to_string(), "2024-03-10T03:00:59-04:00[America/New_York]"); Ok(()) } ``` Notice that when we add a minute, it jumps to `03:00` civil time because of the transition into daylight saving time in my selected time zone. Notice also the offset change from `-05` to `-04`. Compare this with Chrono which also supports `serde`, but not with `chrono-tz` or `tzfile`. One option is to use its `Local` implementation of its `TimeZone` trait: ```rust,no_run use anyhow::Context; use chrono::{DateTime, FixedOffset, Local, TimeDelta, TimeZone}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt = Local.with_ymd_and_hms(2024, 3, 10, 1, 59, 59) .single() .context("invalid naive time")?; let json = serde_json::to_string_pretty(&zdt)?; // Chrono only serializes the offset, which makes lossless // deserialization impossible. Chrono loses the time zone // information. assert_eq!(json, "\"2024-03-10T01:59:59-05:00\""); // The serialized datetime has no time zone information, // so unless there is some out-of-band information saying // what its time zone is, we're forced to use a fixed offset: let got: DateTime = serde_json::from_str(&json)?; assert_eq!(got.to_string(), "2024-03-10 01:59:59 -05:00"); let next = got.checked_add_signed(TimeDelta::minutes(1)) .context("arithmetic failed")?; // This is correct for fixed offset, but it's no longer // DST aware. assert_eq!(next.to_string(), "2024-03-10 02:00:59 -05:00"); // We could deserialize into a `DateTime`, but this // requires knowing that the time zone of the datetime matches // local time zone. Which you might know. But you might not. let got: DateTime = serde_json::from_str(&json)?; assert_eq!(got.to_string(), "2024-03-10 01:59:59 -05:00"); let next = got.checked_add_signed(TimeDelta::minutes(1)) .context("arithmetic failed")?; assert_eq!(next.to_string(), "2024-03-10 03:00:59 -04:00"); Ok(()) } ``` Or, if you have a `Tz` from `chrono-tz`. But in this case, since `chrono-tz` doesn't support Serde, you have to convert to a `DateTime`. Like above, you'll lose DST safe arithmetic after deserialization: ```rust use anyhow::Context; use chrono::{DateTime, FixedOffset, TimeDelta, TimeZone}; use chrono_tz::America::New_York; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt = New_York.with_ymd_and_hms(2024, 3, 10, 1, 59, 59) .single() .context("invalid naive time")?; let json = serde_json::to_string_pretty(&zdt.fixed_offset())?; // Chrono only serializes the offset, which makes lossless // deserialization impossible. Chrono loses the time zone // information. assert_eq!(json, "\"2024-03-10T01:59:59-05:00\""); // The serialized datetime has no time zone information, // so unless there is some out-of-band information saying // what its time zone is, we're forced to use a fixed offset: let got: DateTime = serde_json::from_str(&json)?; assert_eq!(got.to_string(), "2024-03-10 01:59:59 -05:00"); let next = got.checked_add_signed(TimeDelta::minutes(1)) .context("arithmetic failed")?; // This is correct for fixed offset, but it's no longer // DST aware. assert_eq!(next.to_string(), "2024-03-10 02:00:59 -05:00"); Ok(()) } ``` The main way to solve this problem (and is how `java.time`, Temporal and Jiff solve it), is by supporting [RFC 9557]. Otherwise, the only way to fully capture Jiff's functionality in Chrono is to define a custom serialization format that includes the instant, the time zone identifier *and* the offset. (The offset is used for conflict resolution when deserializing datetimes made in the future for which their offset has changed due to changes in the time zone database.) [RFC 9557]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9557/ ### Jiff provides support for zone aware calendar arithmetic With Jiff, you can add non-uniform units like days to time zone aware datetimes, and get non-uniform units like days as a representation of a span between datetimes. And they agree on the results. ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, ToSpan, Unit}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt1 = date(2024, 3, 9).at(21, 0, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let zdt2 = zdt1.checked_add(1.day())?; // Even though 2 o'clock didn't occur on 2024-03-10, adding 1 day // returns the same civil time the next day. assert_eq!(zdt2.to_string(), "2024-03-10T21:00:00-04:00[America/New_York]"); // The span of time is 23 hours: assert_eq!(&zdt2 - &zdt1, 23.hours().fieldwise()); // But if you ask for the span in units of days, you get exactly 1: assert_eq!(zdt1.until((Unit::Day, &zdt2))?, 1.day().fieldwise()); Ok(()) } ``` This is important and difficult to get right because some days are only 23 hours long (typically the day of the year where DST starts) and some days are 25 hours long (typically the day of the year where DST ends). With Jiff, you can seamlessly go back-and-forth between calendar units and clock units without worrying about whether "day" will be interpreted differently. Chrono has some support for this. Namely, it can add units of days in a time zone aware fashion, but it cannot produce spans of time involving days between two zone aware datetimes that is consistent with adding days. ```rust use anyhow::Context; use chrono::{Days, TimeDelta, TimeZone}; use chrono_tz::America::New_York; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt1 = New_York.with_ymd_and_hms(2024, 3, 9, 21, 0, 0) .single() .context("invalid naive time")?; // Adding 1 day via TimeDelta leads to a result that is // 24 hours later, including the gap at 2am on 2024-03-10. // As a result, you get a different civil time, which is // usually not what is intended. let zdt2 = zdt1.checked_add_signed(TimeDelta::days(1)) .context("adding a time delta failed")?; assert_eq!(zdt2.to_string(), "2024-03-10 22:00:00 EDT"); // However, Chrono does expose a separate API for adding // units of days specifically. This does get you the // correct result. let zdt2 = zdt1.checked_add_days(Days::new(1)) .context("adding days failed")?; assert_eq!(zdt2.to_string(), "2024-03-10 21:00:00 EDT"); // The only way to compute a duration between two datetimes // in Chrono is with a `TimeDelta`: let delta = zdt2.signed_duration_since(&zdt1); // And since `TimeDelta` assumes all days are exactly 24 // hours long, you get a result of `0` days. If this were // a fold, the number of days would be `1`, but you'd also // have a number of hours equal to `1`. assert_eq!(delta.num_days(), 0); Ok(()) } ``` ### Jiff losslessly roundtrips durations Jiff implements something close to ISO 8601 to provide lossless serialization and deserialization of its `Span` type. A `Span` covers both calendar and clock units. ```rust use jiff::{Span, ToSpan}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let span = 5.years().months(2).days(1).hours(20); let json = serde_json::to_string_pretty(&span)?; assert_eq!(json, "\"P5Y2M1DT20H\""); let got: Span = serde_json::from_str(&json)?; assert_eq!(got, span.fieldwise()); Ok(()) } ``` Chrono [does not currently have Serde support for its duration type][serde-duration]. [serde-duration]: https://github.com/chronotope/chrono/issues/117 ### Jiff supports dealing with gaps in civil time A gap in civil time most typically occurs when a particular region enters daylight saving time. When this happens, some time on the clocks in that region is skipped. It never appears. (A fold happens when the clocks are rolled back, usually when leaving daylight saving time. In this case, some time on the clock is repeated.) Jiff supports automatically selecting a "reasonable" choice in either case via its "compatible" strategy (as specified by [RFC 5545]). ```rust use jiff::Zoned; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { // This is a gap. The default strategy takes the time after the gap. let zdt: Zoned = "2024-03-10 02:30[America/New_York]".parse()?; assert_eq!(zdt.to_string(), "2024-03-10T03:30:00-04:00[America/New_York]"); // This is a fold. The default strategy takes the time before the fold. let zdt: Zoned = "2024-11-03 01:30[America/New_York]".parse()?; // The time after the fold would be identical, // except the offset would be -05. assert_eq!(zdt.to_string(), "2024-11-03T01:30:00-04:00[America/New_York]"); Ok(()) } ``` Jiff also exposes all information available with respect to ambiguous civil datetimes via `tz::AmbiguousZoned`, `tz::AmbiguousTimestamp` and `tz::AmbiguousOffset`. This enables callers to implement whatever strategy they want. While Chrono will let you deal with folds, it returns `MappedLocalTime::None` in the case of a gap with no additional information. So there's really nothing else you can conveniently do in this case except return an error: ```rust use anyhow::Context; use chrono::{offset::MappedLocalTime, TimeZone}; use chrono_tz::America::New_York; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { // For gaps, Chrono exposes no additional information. let mapped = New_York.with_ymd_and_hms(2024, 3, 10, 2, 30, 0); assert_eq!(mapped, MappedLocalTime::None); // For folds, Chrono gives you the two choices. // This is approximately equivalent to what Jiff exposes // in the case of a fold. let zdt = New_York.with_ymd_and_hms(2024, 11, 3, 1, 30, 0) .earliest() .context("invalid datetime")?; assert_eq!(zdt.to_string(), "2024-11-03 01:30:00 EDT"); Ok(()) } ``` [RFC 5545]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5545 ### Jiff supports rounding durations In Jiff, one can round the duration computed between two datetimes: ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, RoundMode, ToSpan, Unit, ZonedDifference}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt1 = date(2001, 11, 18).at(8, 30, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let zdt2 = date(2024, 7, 11).at(22, 38, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let round_options = ZonedDifference::new(&zdt2) .largest(Unit::Year) .smallest(Unit::Day) .mode(RoundMode::HalfExpand); let span = zdt1.until(round_options)?; assert_eq!(span.fieldwise(), 22.years().months(7).days(24)); Ok(()) } ``` While Chrono supports rounding datetimes themselves via its `chrono::duration::DurationRound` trait, it does not support rounding durations themselves. Indeed, its principle duration type, `TimeDelta`, is an "absolute" duration like `std::time::Duration` (except that it is signed). It doesn't keep track of individual units like Jiff does. Instead, everything gets normalized into a 96-bit integer number of nanoseconds. With this representation, it is impossible to do DST safe rounding to non-uniform units like days. ### Jiff supports zone-aware rounding of durations Jiff's duration rounding is time zone aware. For example, if you're rounding to a number of days, it knows to round 11.5 hours up to 1 day on days with gaps, and round 12 hours down to 0 days on days with folds. The only requirement is that we provide a reference datetime with which to interpret the span. ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, SpanRound, ToSpan, Unit}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let gapday = date(2024, 3, 10).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let foldday = date(2024, 11, 3).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let span1 = 11.hours().minutes(30); let span2 = span1.round( SpanRound::new().smallest(Unit::Day).relative(&gapday), )?; // rounds up, even though on a normal day 11.5 hours would round down. assert_eq!(span2, 1.day().fieldwise()); let span1 = 12.hours(); let span2 = span1.round( SpanRound::new().smallest(Unit::Day).relative(&foldday), )?; // rounds down, even though on a normal day 12 hours would round up. assert_eq!(span2, 0.days().fieldwise()); Ok(()) } ``` As with the previous section, Chrono does not support rounding durations or rounding units like `Days` with respect to a reference datetime. ### Jiff supports re-balancing durations This example is like the one above, except we choose a smaller "largest" unit: ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, RoundMode, ToSpan, Unit, ZonedDifference}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt1 = date(2001, 11, 18).at(8, 30, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let zdt2 = date(2024, 7, 11).at(22, 38, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let round_options = ZonedDifference::new(&zdt2) .largest(Unit::Month) .smallest(Unit::Day) .mode(RoundMode::HalfExpand); let span = zdt1.until(round_options)?; assert_eq!(span, 271.months().days(24).fieldwise()); Ok(()) } ``` ### Jiff supports getting the `nth` weekday from the current date ```rust use jiff::civil::{date, Weekday}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt = date(2024, 7, 11).at(22, 59, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; assert_eq!(zdt.weekday(), Weekday::Thursday); let next_tuesday = zdt.nth_weekday(1, Weekday::Tuesday)?; assert_eq!( next_tuesday.to_string(), "2024-07-16T22:59:00-04:00[America/New_York]", ); Ok(()) } ``` Chrono does have `NaiveDate::from_weekday_of_month_opt`, but it only counts the number of weekdays for a particular month. (The Jiff equivalent is `nth_weekday_of_month`.) Moreover, Chrono's method is only available on naive dates and not zone aware datetimes. ### Jiff supports detecting time zone offset conflicts One of the problems with storing datetimes in the future is that time zone rules can change. For example, if you stored the zone aware datetime `2020-01-15T12:00-02[America/Sao_Paulo]` in 2018, then it would be considered to be in daylight saving time with an offset of `-2`. However, in 2019, daylight saving time was abolished in this time zone, which renders the datetime invalid because its offset *should* be `-3`. Jiff can detect these sorts of conflicts and will actually return a parse error by default. We exemplify this by creating and serializing a zoned datetime from an old copy of the Time Zone Database, and then try to parse it back using our system's current copy of the Time Zone Database. (This also demonstrate's Jiff support for using multiple copies of the Time Zone Database simultaneously. But the main point here is to simulate the process of "serialize datetime, time zone rules change, deserialize datetime.") ```rust,no_run use jiff::{fmt::temporal::DateTimeParser, tz::{self, TimeZoneDatabase}}; // We use a custom parser with a default configuration because we need // to ask the parser to use a different time zone database than the // default. This can't be done via the nice `"...".parse()` API one // would typically use. static PARSER: DateTimeParser = DateTimeParser::new(); fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { // Open a version of tzdb from before Brazil announced its abolition // of daylight saving time. let tzdb2018 = TimeZoneDatabase::from_dir("path/to/tzdb-2018b")?; // Open the system tzdb. let tzdb = tz::db(); // Parse the same datetime string with the same parser, but using two // different versions of tzdb. let dt = "2020-01-15T12:00[America/Sao_Paulo]"; let zdt2018 = PARSER.parse_zoned_with(&tzdb2018, dt)?; let zdt = PARSER.parse_zoned_with(tzdb, dt)?; // Before DST was abolished, 2020-01-15 was in DST, which corresponded // to UTC offset -02. Since DST rules applied to datetimes in the // future, the 2018 version of tzdb would lead one to interpret // 2020-01-15 as being in DST. assert_eq!(zdt2018.offset(), tz::offset(-2)); // But DST was abolished in 2019, which means that 2020-01-15 was no // no longer in DST. So after a tzdb update, the same datetime as above // now has a different offset. assert_eq!(zdt.offset(), tz::offset(-3)); // So if you try to parse a datetime serialized from an older copy of // tzdb with a new copy of tzdb, you'll get an error under the default // configuration because of `OffsetConflict::Reject`. This would succeed if // you parsed it using tzdb2018! assert!(PARSER.parse_zoned_with(tzdb, zdt2018.to_string()).is_err()); Ok(()) } ``` With Chrono, this sort of checking isn't possible in the first place because it doesn't support an interchange format that includes the IANA time zone identifier. ### Jiff supports adding durations with calendar units Since `Span` is Jiff's single duration type that combines calendar and clock units, one can freely add them together. The only requirement is that if a span has calendar units, you need to provide a reference date. (Because 1 month from April 1 is shorter than 1 month from May 1.) ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, ToSpan}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let span1 = 2.years().months(4).days(25).hours(23); let span2 = 3.hours(); let span3 = span1.checked_add((span2, date(2024, 1, 1)))?; assert_eq!(span3.fieldwise(), 2.years().months(4).days(26).hours(2)); Ok(()) } ``` While Chrono has types like `Months` and `Days`, there's no way to combine them into one, and Chrono does not provide operations on both at the same time. ### Jiff supports zone-aware re-balancing of durations If you have a span of `1.day()` and want to convert it to hours, then that calculation depends on how long the day is. If you provide a civil date as a relative reference point, then Jiff assumes the day is always 24 hours long: ```rust use jiff::{civil, SpanRound, ToSpan, Unit}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let relative = civil::date(2024, 4, 1); let span1 = 1.day(); let span2 = span1.round( SpanRound::new().largest(Unit::Hour).relative(relative), )?; assert_eq!(span2, 24.hours().fieldwise()); Ok(()) } ``` But if a reference date is provided with a time zone, then the re-balancing is DST safe: ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, SpanRound, ToSpan, Unit}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { // In the case of a gap (typically transitioning in DST): let zdt = date(2024, 3, 9).at(21, 0, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let span1 = 1.day(); let span2 = span1.round( SpanRound::new().largest(Unit::Hour).relative(&zdt) )?; assert_eq!(span2, 23.hours().fieldwise()); // In the case of a fold (typically transitioning out of DST): let zdt = date(2024, 11, 2).at(21, 0, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let span1 = 1.day(); let span2 = span1.round( SpanRound::new().largest(Unit::Hour).relative(&zdt) )?; assert_eq!(span2, 25.hours().fieldwise()); Ok(()) } ``` ### Jiff is generally faster than Chrono There are some cases where Chrono is faster than Jiff, but Jiff should generally be competitive for equivalent operations. It's generally not possible for Chrono or Jiff to always be faster than the other, since they each use different representations for fundamental types. This in turn makes some operations faster and others slower, depending on what you're trying to do. ```text $ cd bench $ cargo bench -- --save-baseline base [.. snip ..] $ critcmp base -g '(.*)/(?:jiff|chrono)$' group base//chrono base//jiff ----- ------------ ---------- civil_datetime/add_days/diffyear/duration 1.00 8.3±0.07ns ? ?/sec 1.77 14.6±0.29ns ? ?/sec civil_datetime/add_days/sameyear/duration 1.00 6.4±0.07ns ? ?/sec 2.29 14.6±0.23ns ? ?/sec civil_datetime/to_datetime_static/bundled 1.00 22.3±0.31ns ? ?/sec civil_datetime/to_datetime_static/zoneinfo 1.12 18.2±0.33ns ? ?/sec 1.00 16.2±0.17ns ? ?/sec civil_datetime/to_timestamp_tzdb_lookup/bundled 1.00 32.0±0.28ns ? ?/sec civil_datetime/to_timestamp_tzdb_lookup/zoneinfo 52.41 2.1±0.01µs ? ?/sec 1.00 40.7±0.17ns ? ?/sec date/add_days/diffyear/duration 1.00 5.9±0.04ns ? ?/sec 1.11 6.5±0.04ns ? ?/sec date/add_days/sameyear/duration 1.00 2.1±0.03ns ? ?/sec 3.08 6.5±0.05ns ? ?/sec date/difference_days/duration 1.23 3.4±0.03ns ? ?/sec 1.00 2.8±0.02ns ? ?/sec date/tomorrow/diff-month 1.00 0.4±0.00ns ? ?/sec 3.24 1.3±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/tomorrow/diff-year 1.24 1.8±0.02ns ? ?/sec 1.00 1.4±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/tomorrow/same-month 1.00 0.4±0.02ns ? ?/sec 1.93 0.8±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/yesterday/diff-month 1.00 0.4±0.00ns ? ?/sec 3.31 1.3±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/yesterday/diff-year 1.96 2.1±0.02ns ? ?/sec 1.00 1.1±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/yesterday/same-month 1.00 0.4±0.00ns ? ?/sec 1.75 0.7±0.01ns ? ?/sec parse/civil_datetime 3.13 73.6±0.69ns ? ?/sec 1.00 23.5±0.17ns ? ?/sec parse/rfc2822 2.41 62.9±0.35ns ? ?/sec 1.00 26.1±0.30ns ? ?/sec parse/strptime/oneshot 2.93 172.8±3.46ns ? ?/sec 1.00 59.0±0.94ns ? ?/sec parse/strptime/prebuilt 1.00 91.0±1.25ns ? ?/sec print/civil_datetime 3.08 155.6±3.81ns ? ?/sec 1.00 50.5±0.18ns ? ?/sec timestamp/add_time_secs/duration 2.14 5.8±0.04ns ? ?/sec 1.00 2.7±0.02ns ? ?/sec timestamp/add_time_subsec/duration 1.84 5.8±0.04ns ? ?/sec 1.00 3.1±0.05ns ? ?/sec timestamp/every_hour_in_week/byhand 15.83 1654.8±2.72ns ? ?/sec 1.00 104.5±1.31ns ? ?/sec timestamp/to_civil_datetime_offset_conversion 1.61 7.1±0.04ns ? ?/sec 1.00 4.4±0.04ns ? ?/sec timestamp/to_civil_datetime_static/America-New-York/bundled 1.00 21.3±0.12ns ? ?/sec timestamp/to_civil_datetime_static/America-New-York/zoneinfo 1.15 20.5±0.18ns ? ?/sec 1.00 17.7±0.15ns ? ?/sec timestamp/to_civil_datetime_static/Asia-Shanghai/bundled 1.00 20.8±0.21ns ? ?/sec timestamp/to_civil_datetime_static/Asia-Shanghai/zoneinfo 2.60 18.7±0.09ns ? ?/sec 1.00 7.2±0.05ns ? ?/sec zoned/fixed_offset_add_time/duration 1.00 6.0±0.03ns ? ?/sec 3.50 20.9±0.11ns ? ?/sec zoned/fixed_offset_to_civil_datetime 5.92 5.4±0.01ns ? ?/sec 1.00 0.9±0.02ns ? ?/sec zoned/fixed_offset_to_timestamp 3.17 1.2±0.01ns ? ?/sec 1.00 0.4±0.01ns ? ?/sec ``` Questions about benchmarks are welcome in [Discussions on GitHub](https://github.com/BurntSushi/jiff/discussions). ## [`time`](https://docs.rs/time) (v0.3.36) `time` is a Rust datetime library that provides a time zone offset aware datetime type. For the following comparisons, a `Cargo.toml` with the following dependencies should be able to run any of the programs in this section: ```toml anyhow = "1.0.81" jiff = { version = "0.2.0", features = ["serde"] } time = { version = "0.3.36", features = ["local-offset", "macros", "parsing"] } ``` ### Time zone database integration Like `chrono`, the `time` crate does not come with any out of the box functionality for reading your system's copy of the Time Zone Database. Unlike Chrono, however, `time` does not have any way to use the Time Zone Database at all. That is, there is nothing like `chrono-tz` or `tzfile` for `time`, and `time` does not provide the extension points necessary in its API for such a thing to exist. (The `chrono-tz` and `tzfile` crates work by implementing Chrono's `TimeZone` trait.) The main thing `time` supports is a concept of "local" time. In particular, it is limited to determining your system's default time zone offset, but nothing more. That is, it doesn't support DST safe arithmetic: ```rust use anyhow::Context; use time::{ext::NumericalDuration, macros::datetime, Duration}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { // We create a fixed datetime for testing purposes, // but it's the same sort of value we would get back // from `OffsetDateTime::now_local()`. let dt1 = datetime!(2024-03-10 01:30:00 -05:00); let dt2 = dt1.checked_add(1.hours()) .context("datetime arithmetic failed")?; // The 2 o'clock hour didn't exist on 2024-03-10 // in New York. assert_eq!(dt2.to_string(), "2024-03-10 2:30:00.0 -05:00:00"); Ok(()) } ``` `time`, in its present design, is fundamentally incapable of doing daylight saving time safe arithmetic because its `OffsetDateTime` type doesn't know anything about the time zone rules. Compare this with Jiff, which lets you not only create a datetime with an offset, but with a _time zone_: ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, ToSpan}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt1 = date(2024, 3, 10).at(1, 30, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let zdt2 = zdt1.checked_add(1.hour())?; assert_eq!(zdt2.to_string(), "2024-03-10T03:30:00-04:00[America/New_York]"); Ok(()) } ``` In my comparison with Chrono I went through a lot of examples involving time zones. I did this because Chrono supports DST safe arithmetic generally, but with a lot of nuanced differences from what Jiff supports. Conversely, `time` doesn't really support time zones at all. (The main exception is that `time` can return the system configured offset by virtue of platform APIs like `libc`. But time zone support stops there.) So at this time, in this document, we won't belabor the point. ### Jiff allows getting the current time safely from multiple threads ```rust use jiff::Zoned; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let handle = std::thread::spawn(|| { println!("{}", Zoned::now()); }); handle.join().unwrap(); Ok(()) } ``` The output on my system of the above program is: ```text 2024-07-12T15:02:15.92054241-04:00[America/New_York] ``` Conversely, this program using the `time` crate: ```rust,no_run use time::OffsetDateTime; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let handle = std::thread::spawn(|| { println!("{}", OffsetDateTime::now_local().unwrap()); }); handle.join().unwrap(); Ok(()) } ``` Has this output: ```text thread '' panicked at main.rs:7:52: called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: IndeterminateOffset note: run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` environment variable to display a backtrace thread 'main' panicked at main.rs:9:19: called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: Any { .. } ``` The reason for this is that `time` uses `libc` APIs for querying the local time. These `libc` APIs may access the environment in a way that is not synchronized with Rust's standard library, which leads to a path where safe Rust code can be written to cause undefined behavior. `time` mitigates this by checking how many threads are active. If it's a value other than `1`, then `now_local()` fails. Jiff avoids this by avoiding `libc`. Jiff does still read environment variables, but only does so through Rust's standard library `std::env` module. This makes Jiff's access to the environment sound. The `time` crate does provide a way to change this behavior by explicitly opting into the possibility of undefined behavior via `time::util::local_offset::set_soundness`. Aside from that, it is likely that this is a temporary state for `time` until it either implements the `libc` functionality it needs by itself, or until [`std::env::set_var`] is marked `unsafe`. (Which will likely happen in Rust 2024.) [`std::env::set_var`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/env/fn.set_var.html ### `time` supports its own custom format description ```rust use time::{macros::format_description, OffsetDateTime}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let format = format_description!( "[year]-[month]-[day] [hour]:[minute]:[second] \ [offset_hour sign:mandatory]:[offset_minute]:[offset_second]" ); let odt = OffsetDateTime::parse("2024-07-11 22:49:00 -04:00:00", &format)?; assert_eq!(odt.to_string(), "2024-07-11 22:49:00.0 -04:00:00"); Ok(()) } ``` Jiff does support a `strptime`/`strftime` style API via the `jiff::fmt::strtime` module. ### Jiff supports rounding datetimes We use a `Zoned` with a `TimeZone` that has a fixed offset. This is same as `time`'s `OffsetDateTime` type: ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, tz::{self, TimeZone}, Unit, Zoned}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let tz = TimeZone::fixed(tz::offset(-4)); let zdt1 = date(2024, 7, 11).at(16, 46, 0, 0).to_zoned(tz)?; let zdt2 = zdt1.round(Unit::Hour)?; assert_eq!(zdt2.to_string(), "2024-07-11T17:00:00-04:00[-04:00]"); Ok(()) } ``` Note though that because Jiff has support for time zones, you generally shouldn't need to (and shouldn't _want_ to) use fixed offset datetimes. It's because they don't take time zone rules into account and thus do not provide DST safe arithmetic. Instead, the code above should be written like this (unless you have a very specific reason to do otherwise): ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, Unit, Zoned}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { // Can also use `.to_zoned(TimeZone::system())` to use your system's // default time zone. let zdt1 = date(2024, 7, 11).at(16, 46, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let zdt2 = zdt1.round(Unit::Hour)?; assert_eq!(zdt2.to_string(), "2024-07-11T17:00:00-04:00[America/New_York]"); Ok(()) } ``` From here on, we won't use fixed offset datetimes in order to avoid encouraging their use. The `time` crate has no rounding APIs. ### Jiff supports rounding durations In Jiff, one can round the duration computed between two datetimes ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, RoundMode, ToSpan, Unit, ZonedDifference}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt1 = date(2001, 11, 18).at(8, 30, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let zdt2 = date(2024, 7, 11).at(22, 38, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let round_options = ZonedDifference::new(&zdt2) .largest(Unit::Year) .smallest(Unit::Day) .mode(RoundMode::HalfExpand); let span = zdt1.until(round_options)?; assert_eq!(span, 22.years().months(7).days(24).fieldwise()); Ok(()) } ``` The `time` crate has no rounding APIs. ### Jiff provides support for calendar arithmetic With Jiff, you can add durations with calendar units: ```rust use jiff::{civil::date, ToSpan, Unit}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let zdt1 = date(2024, 7, 11).at(21, 0, 0, 0).in_tz("America/New_York")?; let zdt2 = zdt1.checked_add(2.years().months(6).days(1))?; assert_eq!(zdt2.to_string(), "2027-01-12T21:00:00-05:00[America/New_York]"); Ok(()) } ``` The `time` crate does provide a way to construct a `Duration` from units of days via `Duration::days`, but this of course requires assuming that all days are 24 hours long. And `time` does not support adding years or months. ### Jiff supports conveniently re-balancing durations Aside from calendar arithmetic, Jiff also supports re-balancing durations based on what you want the largest unit to be: ```rust use jiff::{SpanRound, ToSpan, Unit}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { // Balance down to seconds. let span1 = 4.hours().minutes(36).seconds(59); let span2 = span1.round(SpanRound::new().largest(Unit::Second))?; assert_eq!(span2, 16_619.seconds().fieldwise()); // Now go back by balancing up to hours. let span1 = 16_619.seconds(); let span2 = span1.round(SpanRound::new().largest(Unit::Hour))?; assert_eq!(span2, 4.hours().minutes(36).seconds(59).fieldwise()); Ok(()) } ``` The `time` crate's `Duration` type can go from bigger units down to smaller units easily enough: ```rust use time::{ext::NumericalDuration, Duration}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let span = 4.hours() + 36.minutes() + 59.seconds(); assert_eq!(span.whole_seconds(), 16_619); Ok(()) } ``` But going from smaller units back up to larger units is difficult: ```rust use time::{ext::NumericalDuration, Duration}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let span = 16_619.seconds(); assert_eq!(span.whole_hours(), 4); assert_eq!(span.whole_minutes(), 276); assert_eq!(span.whole_seconds(), 16_619); Ok(()) } ``` Notice that the accessors just report how many whole units the span is. You can't get the span broken down into smaller units. To achieve that, you need to do the arithmetic yourself: ```rust use time::{convert::{Hour, Minute, Second}, ext::NumericalDuration, Duration}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let mut span = 16_619.seconds(); assert_eq!(span.whole_hours(), 4); assert_eq!(span.whole_minutes() % Minute::per(Hour) as i64, 36); assert_eq!(span.whole_seconds() % Second::per(Minute) as i64, 59); Ok(()) } ``` ### Jiff is generally faster than `time` Unlike Chrono, at least for Jiff's benchmarks, there are few cases where `time` is meaningfully faster than Jiff. The following results were collected with `time 0.3.38`. ```text $ cd bench $ cargo bench -- --save-baseline base [.. snip ..] $ critcmp base -g '(.*)/(?:jiff|time)$' group update//time update//jiff ----- ------------ ------------ civil_datetime/add_days/diffyear/duration 1.19 16.2±0.10ns ? ?/sec 1.00 13.6±0.12ns ? ?/sec civil_datetime/add_days/sameyear/duration 1.22 16.6±0.12ns ? ?/sec 1.00 13.6±0.15ns ? ?/sec date/add_days/diffyear/duration 1.11 7.3±0.07ns ? ?/sec 1.00 6.6±0.07ns ? ?/sec date/add_days/one/duration 1.34 7.3±0.05ns ? ?/sec 1.00 5.4±0.04ns ? ?/sec date/add_days/sameyear/duration 1.16 7.6±0.08ns ? ?/sec 1.00 6.6±0.07ns ? ?/sec date/days_in_month/leap/feb 13.11 5.1±0.16ns ? ?/sec 1.00 0.4±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/days_in_month/leap/nofeb 9.11 3.5±0.16ns ? ?/sec 1.00 0.4±0.00ns ? ?/sec date/days_in_month/noleap/feb 12.66 4.9±0.17ns ? ?/sec 1.00 0.4±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/days_in_month/noleap/nofeb 8.40 3.3±0.10ns ? ?/sec 1.00 0.4±0.00ns ? ?/sec date/difference_days/duration 1.42 4.1±0.05ns ? ?/sec 1.00 2.9±0.03ns ? ?/sec date/tomorrow/diff-month 1.00 0.4±0.01ns ? ?/sec 3.17 1.3±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/tomorrow/diff-year 1.00 0.5±0.01ns ? ?/sec 2.99 1.4±0.02ns ? ?/sec date/tomorrow/same-month 1.00 0.4±0.01ns ? ?/sec 2.00 0.8±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/yesterday/diff-month 1.00 0.3±0.01ns ? ?/sec 4.08 1.3±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/yesterday/diff-year 1.00 0.7±0.01ns ? ?/sec 1.57 1.1±0.01ns ? ?/sec date/yesterday/same-month 1.00 0.3±0.01ns ? ?/sec 2.23 0.7±0.01ns ? ?/sec parse/civil_datetime 1.25 31.4±0.33ns ? ?/sec 1.00 25.0±0.08ns ? ?/sec parse/rfc2822 3.10 80.9±1.19ns ? ?/sec 1.00 26.1±0.41ns ? ?/sec parse/strptime/oneshot 1.00 59.9±1.03ns ? ?/sec parse/strptime/prebuilt 1.00 112.8±1.06ns ? ?/sec print/civil_datetime 1.00 37.6±0.49ns ? ?/sec 1.48 55.7±0.31ns ? ?/sec timestamp/add_time_secs/duration 7.05 19.1±0.20ns ? ?/sec 1.00 2.7±0.03ns ? ?/sec timestamp/add_time_subsec/duration 6.19 19.1±0.15ns ? ?/sec 1.00 3.1±0.03ns ? ?/sec timestamp/every_hour_in_week/byhand 32.25 3.4±0.03µs ? ?/sec 1.00 105.0±0.83ns ? ?/sec timestamp/to_civil_datetime_offset_conversion 3.14 14.6±0.16ns ? ?/sec 1.00 4.7±0.05ns ? ?/sec timestamp/to_civil_datetime_offset_holistic 4.02 18.7±0.07ns ? ?/sec 1.00 4.7±0.04ns ? ?/sec zoned/fixed_offset_add_time/duration 2.41 23.3±0.26ns ? ?/sec 1.00 9.7±0.07ns ? ?/sec zoned/fixed_offset_to_civil_datetime 1.00 0.8±0.00ns ? ?/sec 1.26 1.0±0.03ns ? ?/sec zoned/fixed_offset_to_timestamp 6.92 2.7±0.02ns ? ?/sec 1.00 0.4±0.00ns ? ?/sec ``` Questions about benchmarks are welcome in [Discussions on GitHub](https://github.com/BurntSushi/jiff/discussions). ## [`hifitime`](https://docs.rs/hifitime) (v3.9.0) `hifitime` is a datetime library with a focus on engineering and scientific calculations where general relativity and time dilation matter. It supports conversion between many different time scales: TAI, Terrestrial Time, UTC, GPST and more. It also supports leap seconds. For the following comparisons, a `Cargo.toml` with the following dependencies should be able to run any of the programs in this section: ```toml anyhow = "1.0.81" hifitime = "3.9.0" jiff = { version = "0.2.0", features = ["serde"] } ``` ### Time zone database integration Like the `time` crate, `hifitime` does not support time zones and does not have any integration with the Time Zone Database. `hifitime` doesn't have any equivalent to `OffsetDateTime` like in `time` either. The only datetime type that `hifitime` has is `Epoch`, and it is an absolute time. While you can convert between it and civil time (assuming civil time is in UTC), there is no data type in `hifitime` for representing civil time. ### `hifitime` supports leap seconds In particular, when computing a duration from two `Epoch` values that spans a positive leap second (a second gets repeated), `hifitime` will correctly report the accurate duration: ```rust use hifitime::{Duration, Epoch}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let e1: Epoch = "2015-06-30T23:00:00 UTC".parse()?; let e2: Epoch = "2015-07-01T00:00:00 UTC".parse()?; let duration = e2 - e1; assert_eq!(duration, Duration::from_seconds(3_601.0)); Ok(()) } ``` Jiff, however, [does not support leap seconds][jiff-leap-seconds]: ```rust use jiff::{Timestamp, ToSpan}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let ts1: Timestamp = "2015-06-30T23:00:00Z".parse()?; let ts2: Timestamp = "2015-07-01T00:00:00Z".parse()?; let span = ts2 - ts1; assert_eq!(span, 3_600.seconds().fieldwise()); Ok(()) } ``` So in this case, Jiff reports `3,600` seconds as the duration, but the _actual_ duration was `3,601` seconds, as reported by `hifitime`. [jiff-leap-seconds]: https://github.com/BurntSushi/jiff/issues/7 ### Jiff makes checked or saturating arithmetic explicit For Jiff, whether you want to saturate or not is an explicit part of the API. And implementations of the `Add` operator will panic on overflow: ```rust use jiff::{Timestamp, ToSpan}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let ts = Timestamp::MAX; assert!(ts.checked_add(1.day()).is_err()); assert_eq!(ts.saturating_add(1.hour())?, ts); Ok(()) } ``` In contrast, `hifitime` appears to use saturating arithmetic everywhere (I've not been able to find this behavior documented though, so I'm not clear on what the intended semantics are): ```rust use hifitime::{Duration, Epoch}; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let e1 = Epoch::from_unix_seconds(f64::MAX); let e2 = e1 + Duration::from_days(1.0); assert_eq!(e1, e2); Ok(()) } ``` ## [`icu`](https://docs.rs/icu) (v1.5.0) The ICU4X project fulfils a slightly different need than `jiff`. Its main features are calendrical calculations (`icu::calendar`), supporting conversions between different calendar systems such as Gregorian, Buddhist, Islamic, Japanese, etc., as well as localized datetime formatting (`icu::datetime`). It does not perform datetime or time-zone arithmetic, and does not have a timestamp or duration type. `icu` can be used to complement `jiff` when localized date formatting or calendar conversions are required. To facilitate this, the [`jiff-icu`](https://docs.rs/jiff-icu) crate makes conversions between Jiff and ICU4X data types seamless. For example, to do localization starting from a Jiff data type: ```text use icu::{ calendar::{japanese::Japanese, DateTime}, datetime::TypedDateTimeFormatter, locid::locale, }; use jiff::Timestamp; use jiff_icu::ConvertFrom as _; fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> { let ts: Timestamp = "2024-09-10T23:37:20Z".parse()?; let zoned = ts.in_tz("Asia/Tokyo")?; // Create ICU datetime. let datetime = DateTime::convert_from(zoned.datetime()); // Convert to Japanese calendar. let japanese_datetime = DateTime::new_from_iso(datetime, Japanese::new()); // Format for the en-GB locale. let formatter = TypedDateTimeFormatter::try_new( &locale!("en-GB").into(), Default::default(), )?; // Assert that we get the expected result. assert_eq!( formatter.format(&japanese_datetime).to_string(), "Sept 11, 6 Reiwa, 08:37:20", ); Ok(()) } ``` The above example requires the following dependency specifications: ```toml anyhow = "1.0.81" icu = { version = "1.5.0", features = ["std"] } jiff = { version = "0.1.0", features = ["serde"] } jiff-icu = { version = "0.1.0" } ```