Re: time64: 64-bit variants of gmtime, mktime, localtime etc?

[James Youngman]

On 3/7/07, Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> wrote:
> What do people think about to offer a new set of modules that use
> 64-bit integers for time representation?

Mildly in favour.   That is, removing the year-2038 limitation seems worthwhile.

> I'm thinking a time64.h:
>
> #include <stdint.h>
> typedef int64_t time64_t;
> struct tm *gmtime_r(const time64_t *timep, struct tm *result);
> struct tm *localtime_r(const time64_t *timep, struct tm *result);
> time64_t mktime(struct tm *tm);

I'm not so keen on this though.  I really didn't like the whole thing
with off64_t, creat64() etc.  Creating a whole new set of interfaces
which we just use temporarily until implementations catch up and which
then become redundant just seems like an untidy workaround for an
inconvenient engineering limitation.

James.




> With this module, packages that need support for years >2038 can use
> do this now, instead of waiting for time_t to be made larger in the
> compiler/OS they use.
>
> (This opens up for a time128_t if someone is bothered by the
> 292471210647 year problem inherent with 64-bit times...)
>
> /Simon