From: David Neary (dneary at domain wanadoo.fr)
Date: Mon 02 Sep 2002 - 20:13:42 IST
Nick Hilliard wrote:
> > There's no requirement to use an integer type for time_t at all.
>
> Except for backwards compatibility. Changing the size would break
> compatibility with nfs, most filesystems, everything in <time.h>, rpc
> and a large number of the ABIs and libraries in existence.
Backwards ABI compatibility is a convenience, rather than a
requirement. The time.h declared functions would of course be
implemented with the new time_t (they'd have to be) - I don't see
how it would break nfs.
The bottom line is that pretty much all code which assumes that
time_t is an integer type is broken. All code that assumes time_t
is a 32 bit integer type is very broken. Once the underlying
time_t changes in the implementation (in this case, glibc), all
code should be pretty much able to handle the new one with a
recompile. Any code that can't is (you've guessed it) broken.
Cheers,
Dave.
--
David Neary,
Marseille, France
E-Mail: bolsh at domain gimp.org
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