Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: ANSI standard for difftime()
Message-ID: <10489@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 6 Jul 89 16:22:18 GMT
References: <4400002@tdpvax>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 9

In article <4400002@tdpvax> scott@tdpvax.UUCP writes:
>double difftime(time_t time2, time_t time1);
>and it returns time2 - time1.
>My question is can this value be negative?  Since elapsed time is normally
>a positive value.

The proposed Standard does not talk about "elapsed time".  difftime()
computes the difference between two calendar times.  Obviously the
difference can be negative.