Thomas Lockhart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: |> > > I don't think that our code checks explicitly for a "-1" return, since |> > > the range is checked just before the call, but it would probably be a |> > > good idea if it did |> > As I noticd yesterday, glibc's mktime() has in the current snapshot |> > been changed to return -1 for dates before the epoch. Our glibc guru |> > (Cc'ed) told me, this is according to the standards (C and POSIX) |> > which say, that time_t is undefined for dates prior the epoch, which |> > to me seems obvoius, because otherwise the error return couldn't be |> > distinguished from the time_t value "one second before the epoch"). |> |> ??!! I'm sorry that I don't remember the exact context here (didn't this |> thread start on a FreeBSD amchine?), but are you saying that glibc |> shipped with Linux will potentially stop supporting times and time zones |> before 1970? |> |> Standard or not, there is a *long* history of all decent implementations |> supporting dates prior to 1970, and platforms which do not do so (AIX?) |> have always been a source of scorn and derision. Really.
This is the bug report against glibc that prompted the change: http://bugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?cmd=view%20audit-trail&database=default&pr=2738 |> Ah, but this might explain why I've always seen on my Linux box a 1 |> second offset returned from mktime() for dates before 1970. Everything |> is shifted to allow -1 to be a special value I'll bet... This is a joke, isn't it? |> Yikes. That is not currently acceptable (most platforms deployed in the |> world *do* handle dates and times before 1970), but if I'm understanding |> things correctly we will need to somehow reimplement the entire time and |> time zone support system within PostgreSQL. I'll start looking at the |> FreeBSD code to see what is available. *sigh* Since POSIX says years before 1970 are undefined, it seems you are right. Andreas. -- Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, [EMAIL PROTECTED] SuSE GmbH, Deutschherrnstr. 15-19, D-90429 Nürnberg Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756 01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5 "And now for something completely different." ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
