New from the standards committee

[jacob navia]

Mr Lawrence Jones wrote in a message in this group

<quote>
....the latest draft (N1401) now spells it out explicitly (and more
restrictively):

If any of the fields of the broken-down time contain values that
are outside their normal ranges, the behavior of the asctime
function is undefined. Likewise, if the calculated year exceeds
four digits or is less than the year 1000, the behavior is
undefined.

You'll be happy to know that the committee just voted (unanimously, as
it turns out) to remove gets() from the draft as well.
<end quote>

I think that the committee has done an excellent decision in both issues.

It could mean that buffer overflows and correct function specification are
going to have more weight in the decisions of the committee that they have
had till now.

It could mean also that all those discussions here and in comp.std.c were
NOT just wasted time, and that trying to reason with the committee members
is possible.

Mr Jones continued:

"So what are you going to complain about now?"

I have to concede that my two best battle horses have been killed...



I have still other complaints but it is clear that they do not have
the urgency of those two. Other complaints are much more a matter of
opinion.

I thank the committee members for their work.

Jacob

 

[frank]

Mr Lawrence Jones wrote in a message in this group

<quote>
...the latest draft (N1401) now spells it out explicitly (and more
restrictively):

If any of the fields of the broken-down time
contain values that are outside their normal ranges,
the behavior of the asctime function is undefined.
Likewise, if the calculated year exceeds four digits or
is less than the year 1000, the behavior is undefined.

That's worth quoting. I think that if you have a time-sensitive problem,
you have to find the syntax that fits. I wouldn't do carbon-dating in C
and hope that I had achieved something portable. For what I am studying
to do, a syntax that measures only in seconds and can last for a hundred
years is just fine.

 

[jacob navia]

frank a écrit :

That's worth quoting. I think that if you have a time-sensitive problem,
you have to find the syntax that fits. I wouldn't do carbon-dating in C
and hope that I had achieved something portable. For what I am studying
to do, a syntax that measures only in seconds and can last for a hundred
years is just fine.

You can do carbon dating in C. The structure tm can be dimensioned as you
wish. We are speaking about asctime() here, that has a fixed size buffer.

Nothing would be wrong if you used strftime and a suitable dimensioned
struct tm.

 

[jacob navia]

It is interesting to note the silence of some people.

A resounding silence.

 

[Tom St Denis]

It is interesting to note the silence of some people.

A resounding silence.

Didn't care before for the asctime bug in the C99 spec, don't care
now, won't care later.

How's that for silence?

Tom

 

[Keith Thompson]

It is interesting to note the silence of some people.

A resounding silence.

I suspect I'm not the only person who has no idea what you're
referring to. Can you clarify?

 

[Seebs]

I suspect I'm not the only person who has no idea what you're
referring to. Can you clarify?

I assume there must be at least one person who didn't care about this issue,
who has not reacted with horror or outrage to the committee fixing it, from
which doubtless some kind of inference could be drawn?

I didn't think this was a significant issue, and I still pretty much don't,
but I'm glad to see it fixed up. I might have been marginally happier with
a fix which involved requiring asctime not to be a festering sore on the
language's rear end, but I think that's probably not worth it -- I am pretty
sure everyone sane moved to strftime years ago.

-s

 

[Keith Thompson]

I assume there must be at least one person who didn't care about this issue,
who has not reacted with horror or outrage to the committee fixing it, from
which doubtless some kind of inference could be drawn?

"This issue" being asctime(), I suppose?

Yeah, that's probably what he meant, but I didn't want to assume it in
the absence of any clear statement.

[...]

 

[Keith Thompson]

I suspect I'm not the only person who has no idea what you're
referring to. Can you clarify?

Oh, I see. jacob changed the subject header from "New from the
standards committee" to "The sound of silence". Since I had already
read all the previous messages in the thread, my newsreader showed
me jacob's followup as if it were the first article in a new thread.
I could have discovered this if I had looked at the Reference header
or used my newsreader's command to go back to the parent article,
but I had no reason to think it was necessary.

So jacob was talking about the alleged lack of reaction to Lawrence
Jones's announcement regarding asctime. (In fact, there were
several comments. I won't speculate further.)

 

[frank]

I assume there must be at least one person who didn't care about this
issue, who has not reacted with horror or outrage to the committee
fixing it, from which doubtless some kind of inference could be drawn?

"This issue" being asctime(), I suppose?

Yeah, that's probably what he meant, but I didn't want to assume it in
the absence of any clear statement.

[...]

I'm certain we're all grateful for jacob's attention to the committee.
If people like jacob didn't pay attention, there wouldn't be a committee.

Plauger says "call asctime if you want the English-language form
regardless of current locale." I would have to think that you wouldn't
need a lot of flexibility for this.

"The sound of silence" makes a great karaoke song for a guy and a gal. I
think I sang Art Garfunkel's part one octave lower. "The words of the
profits are written on the subway wall."