From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Jan 16 12: 2:59 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from pluto.psn.net (pluto.psn.net [207.211.58.12]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 35E7E150F6; Sun, 16 Jan 2000 12:02:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from will@shadow.blackdawn.com) Received: from 22-084.008.popsite.net ([209.69.197.84] helo=shadow.blackdawn.com) by pluto.psn.net with esmtp (PSN Internet Service 3.12 #1) id 129vso-0001t8-00; Sun, 16 Jan 2000 13:02:42 -0700 Received: (from will@localhost) by shadow.blackdawn.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id PAA48751; Sun, 16 Jan 2000 15:02:39 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from will) Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.3.1 [p0] on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 15:02:38 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: Will Andrews From: Will Andrews To: Omachonu Ogali Subject: Re: time_t (was Re: I will never trust NBC news again!) Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG, Eivind Eklund , Matthew Hunt Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On 16-Jan-00 Omachonu Ogali wrote: > Why isn't it and why can't it be? Historical reasons. You're asking the entire computer industry to change the standard libraries' use of the time_t typedef. time_t starts on January 1, 1970 at 00:00 UTC. People who need dates before that can write their own timekeeping libraries that can easily "drop in" for their C libraries. Banks, crime depts, etc. are only a small portion of the "computer user" legion. It would be a completely ridiculous idea to change time_t everywhere. I would predict chaos, quite frankly. -- Will Andrews GCS/E/S @d- s+:+>+:- a--->+++ C++ UB++++ P+ L- E--- W+++ !N !o ?K w--- ?O M+ V-- PS+ PE++ Y+ PGP+>+++ t++ 5 X++ R+ tv+ b++>++++ DI+++ D+ G++>+++ e->++++ h! r-->+++ y? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message