The following reply was made to PR bin/36831; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Alan Barrett <apb@cequrux.com>
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Cc: netbsd-bugs@NetBSD.org
Subject: Re: bin/36831: rtclocaltime shows negative 0
Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:16:06 +0200

 On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, Alan Barrett wrote:
 > This is caused by an awk bug, which is reproducible like this:
 > 
 >     echo foo | awk '{print (-1 * 0)}'
 >     # prints "-0"; should print "0".
 
 I am no longer convinced that awk's behaviour is incorrect; see a
 message from Terry Moore to tech-userlevel@netbsd.org dated 24 Aug
 2007, in which he points out that the C standard requires printf to
 distinguish between positive and negative zero:
 
     According to ISO C-1999 page 275, section 7.19.6.1, note 233:
 
     "The results of all floating conversions of a negative zero, and of
     negative values that round to zero, include a minus sign".
 
 > > The patch fixes this. No functional changes, just cosmetics showing 0
 > > without a negative sign.
 > 
 > Your patch happens to work around the awk bug, but makes the shell script
 > much harder to understand.
 
 I implemented a different fix, which also avoids creating a negative
 zero result, but which I find easier to read.
 
 --apb (Alan Barrett)