Re: Represent NTP's origin time

[tomas]

On Sat, Apr 17, 2021 at 03:44:28PM +0200, Achim Gratz wrote:
> Achim Gratz writes:
> > Stefan Monnier writes:
> >> NTP represents time stamps by counting seconds from January 1 1900, but
> >> my Emacs doesn't seem to be able to represent this:
> >>
> >>     (encode-time (parse-time-string "1902-01-01T00:00-00:00"))
> >>     => (-32745 59520)
> >>     (encode-time (parse-time-string "1900-01-01T00:00-00:00"))
> >>     => (error "Specified time is not representable")
> >>
> >> Do we have some "standard" workaround?
> >
> > Get off your 32bit system already?
> 
> There have been responses that called this answer "unkind" or "snarky".

Only mildly so, from my side.

> It wasn't meant to be, I apologise for the impression that was likely
> created by being too brief [...]

I do understand the issues, but see below.

I replied (or so I thought) "in kind". A better reply would have
been: Emacs supports 32 bit platforms. Unless ending 32 bit
support is in the near-future, it'd be a good idea to think about
how to support a wider (possibly 64 bit) time_t even on a 32 bit
Emacs.

The *BSDs and Linux (beyond kernel 5.6ish) do support 64 bit time_t
in their 32 bit variants: perhaps this is an orientation.

Cheers
 - t

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