Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 13:10:40 -0600 (MDT) From: Dave Andersen <angio@aros.net> To: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett A. Wollman) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Help -- Stupid "C" question. Message-ID: <199510271910.NAA14179@terra.aros.net> In-Reply-To: <9510271522.AA22958@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu> from "Garrett A. Wollman" at Oct 27, 95 11:22:05 am
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Lo and behold, Garrett A. Wollman once said:
>
> Hey, it's portable programming time!
>
> Actually, let's be slightly more accurate here.
>
> time(3) takes as its only argument a pointer to type `time_t'. If
> that pointer is not null (NB: not `not NULL'), then it fills in that
> location with the current time. In any case, it also returns a value
> of type `time_t'. (Old systems spelled `time_t' l-o-n-g, but you
> should use `time_t' and define it yourself if the system doesn't.
> FreeBSD always has.) Depending on your preferred style of
> programming, you might want to write either:
>
> time_t thetime;
> time(&thetime);
> or
> time_t thetime;
> thetime = time((time_t *)0);
>
> Note that the `(time_t *)' case is important for portable programs,
> unless you can guarantee that a complete prototype of the `time'
> function is in scope. (I consider it to be good style anyway.) The
You are, of course, entirely correct here. I seem to have been
bitten by the laziness bug. :) My use of the 'long' was somewhat
egregious, however; it's the kind of thing that makes code break wildly
after a long int isn't long enough to store the time since time began.
-Dave Andersen
--
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