Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!decvax!ucbvax!agate!garnet.berkeley.edu!csm
From: csm@garnet.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Timekeeping in ANSI C
Summary: What are the current candidates for timekeeping "standards?"
Keywords: time standards
Message-ID: <6948@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 10 Feb 88 23:06:25 GMT
References: <461@auvax.UUCP> <28700025@ccvaxa> <7159@brl-smoke.ARPA> <2527@haddock.ISC.COM> <594@acornrc.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: bks@garnet.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Brad Sherman)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 17

In article <594@acornrc.UUCP> rbbb@acornrc.UUCP (David Chase) writes:
>   ...   time is represented as a structure containing two unsigned long
>quantities (hi and lo).  The time is encoded as  ...
>This structure can encode dates from 1900 AD to something like 47000 AD.
>It is a pill to work with, of course  ...
>David Chase

 I agree with David that the current UNIXY time functions leave a lot
 to be desired. (BTW 1900 AD is not nearly far enough back - e.g. some
 birthdates will be in the 19th century for a number of years to come.) 
 I for one am tired of writing software that I know will break.  My 
 current workaround is to check the system year and complain and exit
 if the software isn't going to work correctly.
 This group would seem to be the obvious place to establish some sort of
 consensus on better time functions.  Anybody out there proud enough of
 his/her own efforts to show us how it should be done?
             -Brad Sherman