Re: [boost] Cross-platform date/time problems

Subject: Re: [boost] Cross-platform date/time problems
From: Zachary Turner (divisortheory_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-11-01 12:11:00

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 3:42 AM, Andrey Semashev
<andrey.semashev_at_[hidden]>wrote:

>
> Actually, FILETIME is a structure, the function just optimises its
> operation by converting it to uint64_t internally, which may not be valid on
> Linux. Obviously, this structure is not available on Linux, so there's no
> way you can acquire it from OS.
>

> The from_ftime function (and all other facilities it uses) are targeted for
> Windows platform and operate on FILETIME, not on some opaque uint64_t.
> FILETIME has additional value semantics, such as the base date and
> resolution. These semantics are not described for Linux.
>
I agree, but the point is that semantically a FILETIME is defined as "an
opaque structure representing the number of 100-nanosecond intervals since
January 1, 1601".  Integer types are perfectly capable of representing
exactly the same semantic definition, so why not? I don't think it even
requires any code changes except to remove a single #ifdef in the date_time
header files.