now is the instant "not dated in advance" is judged against. It is a parameter
rather than a call to the clock because the decision has to be reproducible: a
record re-extracted years later must abstain on exactly the fields it abstained
on the first time, or ka verify reports a mismatch that says nothing about the
data. Callers pass the instant the bytes were archived, which the record carries.
When now is undefined the upper bound is simply not asserted. Without a known
instant there is nothing to call "the future", and inventing one from the wall
clock is what made this non-reproducible in the first place.
Run every validator.
nowis the instant "not dated in advance" is judged against. It is a parameter rather than a call to the clock because the decision has to be reproducible: a record re-extracted years later must abstain on exactly the fields it abstained on the first time, orka verifyreports a mismatch that says nothing about the data. Callers pass the instant the bytes were archived, which the record carries.When
nowis undefined the upper bound is simply not asserted. Without a known instant there is nothing to call "the future", and inventing one from the wall clock is what made this non-reproducible in the first place.