[LEAPSECS] A new use for Pre-1972 UTC

Poul-Henning Kamp phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Tue Feb 17 17:30:52 EST 2009


In message <20090217211636.GF91747 at davros.org>, "Clive D.W. Feather" writes:

>Poul-Henning Kamp said:

>>>>> ISO C doesn't define the type, format, or meaning of time_t - it can even

>>>>> be floating point or (IIRC) a structure.

>

>>> Okay (I didn't have the standard in front of me). That still allows

>>> floating point.

>>

>> And that wouldn't matter, the objective is to make a random number.

>

>But what would matter is that time_t on my machine and yours might be

>completely different.


And that would be perfect, because then there is even less chance of
you creating a random identifier that is identical to mine.

Remember, this is a write-only timestamp, its only purpose is to
provide time-changing bits. What those bits mean does not matter.

--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.


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