Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!stc!root44!gwc
From: gwc@root.co.uk (Geoff Clare)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: ANSI C date & time library functions.
Message-ID: <1215@root44.co.uk>
Date: 12 Feb 90 17:45:12 GMT
References: <DAVE.90Feb6112502@marvin.moncam.co.uk> <1990Feb9.183316.24925@utzoo.uucp> <15919@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Reply-To: gwc@root.co.uk (Geoff Clare)
Organization: UniSoft Ltd, London, England
Lines: 11

In article <15919@haddock.ima.isc.com> karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
>As far as I can see, the only reason that it has to be arithmetic at all is so
>that time() can return (time_t)-1 to flag an error.  This is rather bizarre,
>since existing Unix implementations never return an error from time();

It's needed so that mktime() can return (time_t)-1 to flag an error (for
unrepresentable times).
-- 
Geoff Clare, UniSoft Limited, Saunderson House, Hayne Street, London EC1A 9HH
gwc@root.co.uk  (Dumb mailers: ...!uunet!root.co.uk!gwc)  Tel: +44-1-315-6600
                                         (from 6th May 1990): +44-71-315-6600