[tz] question about mktime_tzname()

Paul Eggert eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Thu Jan 12 16:05:59 UTC 2017


On 01/12/2017 02:26 AM, Robert Elz wrote:
> There are proposals (even implemented, though I am not sure how widely)
> to alter the range of 32 bit time_t, 0 is still Jan 1, 1970, but from
> that positive values range from (say) 1..BFFFFFFF and C0000000..FFFFFFFF
> are negative.   (The actual cutover point seems to vary).

I haven't seen that; what implementations are those? They would not
conform to POSIX, which requires that time_t be an integer type that
counts non-leap seconds since 1970.

There are systems with unsigned 32-bit time_t, which will work until the
year 2106 and which does conform to POSIX. Older Network Appliance
filers come to mind.

Microsoft and NetBSD are not the only 32-bit systems with 64-bit time_t;
OpenBSD and GNU/Linux's x32 ABI also work that way, and I expect these
platforms to supplant their older 32-bit time_t cousins on 32-bit
systems before 2038 rolls around.



More information about the tz mailing list