Re: [boost] DateTime conversion to tm problem?

Subject: Re: [boost] DateTime conversion to tm problem?
From: Maciej Sobczak (prog_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-06-21 16:24:05

Hello,

Ilya Bobir wrote:

>> The posix_time::to_tm function clears the date fields of the std::tm 
>> structure. Having zeros on year, month and day fields represent the 
>> 1900-01-00 date according to the std::tm conventions, which is a date 
>> that did not exist. Using such value with other APIs might result in 
>> out of range conditions.
>>
>> Is it considered to be a problem? What about setting tm_mday to 1 
>> instead (which would represent 1900-01-01 - that is, the first legal 
>> date)?
>>
> 
> Maybe if you show a use case your proposal will get more weight?

If you send this value to any API that expects a valid date, it might 
result in an error, because such date did not exist.

Practical example - this was actually found when sending such value to 
the PostgreSQL database. I guess any other database is also "vulnerable" 
and also the way of sending it does not matter - it is the server itself 
that rejects the value, not any database interface.

Independent on this practical example, the C standard defines the legal 
ranges of values for members of the tm structure and the tm_mday has the 
range [1,31]. I would argue that any code that sets it to zero is 
violating the standard.

> Are there any use cases that will become invalid if the tm_mday will be 
> set to 1?

Andrey Semashev noted that in the case of duration such a value is 
correct. I would argue, however, that duration and "point in time" 
should be distinct types - "overloading" std::tm for handling durations 
is a bad idea for the reasons explained above.

Regards,

-- 
Maciej Sobczak * www.msobczak.com * www.inspirel.com