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Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 01:11:59 +0100
From: Matthieu Michaud <matthieu@nxdomain.fr>
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To: Bruce Evans <brde@optusnet.com.au>
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Cc: standards@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: make struct timeval posix compliant ?
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Bruce Evans wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Dec 2007, Matthieu Michaud wrote:
> 
>> Few months ago I sent a mail to stable@freebsd.org in the hope to 
>> discuss struct timeval posix conformance in RELENG_6.
>>
>> http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?1397BA88-CC55-4585-86CB-3BD08FBABEF5
>>
>> Given the few answers, I may have targetted the wrong mailing list or 
>> this change has no interest. So, here are the questions again :
>>
>> - Do you want FreeBSD 6 to conform posix specs for struct timeval ? 
>> (it's not always a right thing to do to strictly conform standards)
> 
> No, but I don't use FreeBSD-6.
> 
>> - Is it ok to do it ? (if i'm correct there is a minor abi change and 
>> this could be a strong reason to stay as is)
> 
> It is a huge ABI breakage for arches with 64-bit longs and 32-bit
> time_t's (these seem to be only alpha, and i386 and powerpc with the
> not-really-supported correctly-sized longs).  These could be ifdefed
> like arm already is (ugh).
> 
> It is a minor API breakage/fix.
> 
> Bruce

This is a little portability issue. I noticed it while working on an app 
targetting both 6 and 7. I wasn't 100% sure of the consequences. I now 
am and you're right : this is a minor API fix and a big API break. This 
is no game to play and I'll live with it. Thanks for your answer.