Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 13:50:33 -0800 From: Joel.Tornatore@Eng.Sun.COM (Joel Tornatore) Message-ID: <199711112150.NAA26831@gap.eng.sun.com> | changing time_t to an unsigned int would give another | 68 years without any of the size/performance problems | mentioned in Tom's email. I made that change back in pre 4.2 bsd days. It turned out that it broke too much - most notably, programs that like to print ctime(0) (and there I mean the time_t with a value of 0, I know ctime really takes a pointed to a time_t, and ctime(0) would be a null pointer). The standard behaviour, anywhere west of Greenwich, was to not print Dec 31 1969 in that case, but some time way into the future, which was not at all what anyone expected. So, before 4.2 was actually released, time_t went back signed again. It was all this that caused some of the time functions able to adapt and work whether time_t turns out to be signed or not. kre