GitLocker: The Coding Marketplace

Description:

jdcal 1.4.1

This module contains functions for converting between Julian dates and
calendar dates.
A function for converting Gregorian calendar dates to Julian dates, and
another function for converting Julian calendar dates to Julian dates
are defined. Two functions for the reverse calculations are also
defined.
Different regions of the world switched to Gregorian calendar from
Julian calendar on different dates. Having separate functions for Julian
and Gregorian calendars allow maximum flexibility in choosing the
relevant calendar.
Julian dates are stored in two floating point numbers (double). Julian
dates, and Modified Julian dates, are large numbers. If only one number
is used, then the precision of the time stored is limited. Using two
numbers, time can be split in a manner that will allow maximum
precision. For example, the first number could be the Julian date for
the beginning of a day and the second number could be the fractional
day. Calculations that need the latter part can now work with maximum
precision.
All the above functions are “proleptic”. This means that they work for
dates on which the concerned calendar is not valid. For example,
Gregorian calendar was not used prior to around October 1582.
A function to test if a given Gregorian calendar year is a leap year is
also defined.
Zero point of Modified Julian Date (MJD) and the MJD of 2000/1/1
12:00:00 are also given as module level constants.

Examples
Some examples are given below. For more information see
https://oneau.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/jdcal/.
Gregorian calendar:
>>> from jdcal import gcal2jd, jd2gcal
>>> gcal2jd(2000,1,1)
(2400000.5, 51544.0)
>>> 2400000.5 + 51544.0 + 0.5
2451545.0

>>> gcal2jd(2000,2,30)
(2400000.5, 51604.0)
>>> gcal2jd(2000,3,1)
(2400000.5, 51604.0)
>>> gcal2jd(2001,2,30)
(2400000.5, 51970.0)
>>> gcal2jd(2001,3,2)
(2400000.5, 51970.0)

>>> jd2gcal(*gcal2jd(2000,1,1))
(2000, 1, 1, 0.0)
>>> jd2gcal(*gcal2jd(1950,1,1))
(1950, 1, 1, 0.0)

>>> gcal2jd(2000,1,1)
(2400000.5, 51544.0)
>>> jd2gcal(2400000.5, 51544.0)
(2000, 1, 1, 0.0)
>>> jd2gcal(2400000.5, 51544.5)
(2000, 1, 1, 0.5)
>>> jd2gcal(2400000.5, 51544.245)
(2000, 1, 1, 0.24500000000261934)
>>> jd2gcal(2400000.5, 51544.1)
(2000, 1, 1, 0.099999999998544808)
>>> jd2gcal(2400000.5, 51544.75)
(2000, 1, 1, 0.75)
Julian calendar:
>>> jd2jcal(*jcal2jd(2000, 1, 1))
(2000, 1, 1, 0.0)
>>> jd2jcal(*jcal2jd(-4000, 10, 11))
(-4000, 10, 11, 0.0)
Gregorian leap year:
>>> from jdcal import is_leap
>>> is_leap(2000)
True
>>> is_leap(2100)
False
JD for zero point of MJD, and MJD for JD2000.0:
>>> from jdcal import MJD_0, MJD_JD2000
>>> print MJD_0
2400000.5
>>> print MJD_JD2000
51544.5

Installation
The module can be installed using pip or easy_install:
$ pip install jdcal
or,
$ easy_install jdcal
Tests are in test_jdcal.py.

Credits

A good amount of the code is based on the excellent TPM C library
by Jeffrey W. Percival.
The inspiration to split Julian dates into two numbers came from the
IAU SOFA C library. No code or algorithm from the SOFA library is
used in jdcal.

License
Released under BSD; see LICENSE.txt.
For comments and suggestions, email to user prasanthhn in the gmail.com
domain.