API explosion (Re: [RFC/RFT] calloutng)

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

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In message <20121220005706.I1675 at besplex.bde.org>, Bruce Evans writes:
>On Wed, 19 Dec 2012, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

>> Except that for absolute timescales, we're running out of the 32 bits
>> integer part.
>
>Except 32 bit time_t works until 2106 if it is unsigned.

That's sort of not an option.

The real problem was that time_t was not defined as a floating
point number.

>> [1] A good addition to C would be a general multi-word integer type
>> where you could ask for any int%d_t or uint%d_t you cared for, and
>> have the compiler DTRT.  In difference from using a multiword-library,
>> this would still give these types their natural integer behaviour.
>
>That would be convenient, but bad for efficiency if it were actually
>used much.

You can say that about anything but CPU-native operations, and I doubt
it would be as inefficient as struct bintime, which does not have access
to the carry bit.

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