From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Aug 13 21:58:39 1998
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA20186
          for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Thu, 13 Aug 1998 21:58:39 -0700 (PDT)
          (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG)
Received: from biggusdiskus.flyingfox.com (biggusdiskus.flyingfox.com [205.162.1.28])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA20179
          for <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>; Thu, 13 Aug 1998 21:58:36 -0700 (PDT)
          (envelope-from jas@flyingfox.com)
Received: (from jas@localhost)
	by biggusdiskus.flyingfox.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) id WAA08017;
	Thu, 13 Aug 1998 22:00:03 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 22:00:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jim Shankland <jas@flyingfox.com>
Message-Id: <199808140500.WAA08017@biggusdiskus.flyingfox.com>
To: brawley@camtech.com.au, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, mph@pobox.com
Subject: Re: 64-bit time_t
In-Reply-To: <19980814000605.A25012@astro.psu.edu>
Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

Matthew Hunt <mph@pobox.com> writes:

> On Fri, Aug 14, 1998 at 10:10:02AM +0930, Ivan Brawley wrote:
> 
> > Question: What is wrong with using an unsigned long for time_t,
> > instead of long (which is then assumed signed).
> 
> man 3 time:
> 
>      Upon successful completion, time() returns the value of time.
>      Otherwise a value of ((time_t) -1) is returned and the
>      global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

... which will cause an unsigned-long (32-bit) time counter to
fail precisely 1 second earlier than it would have otherwise,
some time in the early twenty second century.

Jim Shankland
Flying Fox Computer Systems, Inc.

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message