Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!munnari.oz.au!csc!bdm659
From: bdm659@csc.anu.oz
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: ANSI C date & time library functions.
Message-ID: <1487.25d42437@csc.anu.oz>
Date: 10 Feb 90 14:24:55 GMT
References: <DAVE.90Feb6112502@marvin.moncam.co.uk> <1990Feb9.183316.24925@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: Computer Services, Australian National University
Lines: 25

In article <1990Feb9.183316.24925@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
> Unless this changed since the Oct 88 draft, time_t is not constrained to
> be a scalar type, only to be an arithmetic type.  That is, it could be
> floating-point.

It's the same in the Dec 1988 draft.

>                  It also might be some implementation-specific type like
> "long long int".

Are you sure about that?  Section 3.1.2.5 claims to give a complete list
of arithmetic types.  Shouldn't we take "arithmetic type" as meaning "one
of the types this Standard says are arithmetic types"?  I can't find any
specific guidelines on this matter in the Standard, though Section 3.3.3.4
of the Rationale has this to say about the size_t type:
    "The type of sizeof, whatever it is, is published (in the library
     header <stddef.h>) as size_t, since it is useful for the programmer
     to be able to refer to this type.  This requirement implicitly
     restricts size_t to be a synonym for an *existing* unsigned integer
     type, thus quashing any notion that the largest declarable object
     might be too big to span even with an unsigned long."  [my emphasis]

Brendan McKay.  bdm@anucsd.oz(.au)  or bdm659@csc1.anu.oz(.au)
terrorist: n. an individual who behaves like a government