Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 11:57:38 -0700 From: Sean Chittenden <sean@chittenden.org> To: Garrett Wollman <wollman@lcs.mit.edu> Cc: freebsd-standards@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: mktime() doesn't fix deadzones... Message-ID: <20020412115738.F73286@ninja1.internal> In-Reply-To: <200204102028.g3AKS5h68482@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>; from "wollman@lcs.mit.edu" on Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at = 04:28:05PM References: <sean@chittenden.org> <200204101233.g3ACXaOF052655@hak.lan.Awfulhak.org> <20020410125409.B34587@ninja1.internal> <200204102028.g3AKS5h68482@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
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> > I like that mktime() returns -1 for invalid times, but I don't > > think Apr 7th @2am-8 is an invalid time. Not correct, but not > > invalid either. > > There is no such time as 2001-04-07T0200 when US DST rules are used. > This time simply does not exist, and mktime() correctly returns an > error. It has no way of knowing that you ``really meant'' > 2001-04-07T0300. There is no February 29th most years, but if you put in Feb 29, it'll automatically figure out that you wanted March 1st. > > Sun Apr 07 02:00:00 PST 2002 =3D 1018173600 > > ...except that PST is not in effect at that time in your timezone. I'm not one to disagree, but when I get handed bogus data, it strikes me as very possible for mktime() to normalize the dates/times. Seems a tad wasteful and unnecessary to have programmers deal with this. I don't particularly want a lecture on timezones from mktime(), I just want it to parse, apply structural rules, normalize the time, and return time_t. If I get time_t, then it's right. I don't really care if my timezone offset is -48hrs or if I put in 36hrs in a day, I want time_t back. Is there another syscall that doesn't validate the data, but returns time_t? Something that more closely conformed with other OSes would be nice for code portability. Have you tried running your code fragment on Sun, Linux, or DEC? -sc -- Sean Chittenden To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-standards" in the body of the message
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