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From: "Andreas K. Huettel" <dilfridge@gentoo.org>
To: distributions@lists.linux.dev
Subject: Re: 64-bit time_t
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2024 00:00:59 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <24319099.EfDdHjke4D@noumea> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <2a182576-0382-45ce-a5b4-b469f154a6de@suse.de>

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> In https://lore.kernel.org/distributions/6614772.670kD7asE2@nimes/
> Bruno Haible wrote:
> 
> > Regarding the distro people:
> > 
> >   The outcome of a discussion, about a month or two ago, was AFAIU that
> >   Linux/x86 and Linux/arm distros have a choice between
> >     (a) enabling 64-bit time_t for all packages, thus breaking ABI
> >         compatibility once and becoming year 2038 saft, or

CHOST=i686-pc-linux-gnut64

> >     (b) staying with the 32-bit time_t, and announcing that their
> >         distro will stop working in 2038.

CHOST=i686-pc-linux-gnu

> >   An incremental or partial move to 64-bit time_t would be too expensive,
> >   did the distro people say.

That's the option "pain without end" (instead of an end with pain).

> or option c)
> One less troublesome solution could be to patch glibc to redefine the 
> 32-bit time_t as unsigned so that ABIs could remain compatible and at 
> the same time it would support timestamps until 2106.
> Though that would break any application that uses time_t for dates 
> between 1901 and 1970 (are there any?).
> Do I miss any other downsides?

ENOCRYSTALBALL - how do you find where it's needed and where not?
it was perfectly legal so far...

> option d) would be to adapt all libraries that have time_t in their API 
> to have both 32-bit and 64-bit time_t variants. The former for 
> compatibility with old binaries and the latter for new future-proof 
> binaries. This could provide a smooth transition because not all 
> 3rd-party binaries can be rebuilt.

But please please please no ugly fiddling with soname.

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer 
(council, comrel, toolchain, base-system, perl, libreoffice)
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Dilfridge

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      parent reply	other threads:[~2024-01-13 23:01 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2024-01-02 12:44 64-bit time_t Bernhard M. Wiedemann
2024-01-02 12:50 ` Neal Gompa
2024-01-02 13:20 ` Adrien Nader
2024-01-13 23:00 ` Andreas K. Huettel [this message]

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