Re: [PATCH 0/6] Use time_t

> On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 10:30:20PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> > One notable fallout of this patch series is that on 64-bit Linux (and
> > other platforms where `unsigned long` is 64-bit), we now limit the
> > range of dates to LONG_MAX (i.e. the *signed* maximum value). This
> > needs to be done as `time_t` can be signed (and indeed is at least on
> > my Ubuntu setup).
> > 
> > Obviously, I think that we can live with that, and I hope that all
> > interested parties agree.
> 
> I do not just agree, but I think the move to a signed timestamp is a big
> improvement. Git's object format is happy to represent times before
> 1970, but the code is not. I know this has been a pain for people who
> import ancient histories into Git.
> 
> It looks from the discussion like the sanest path forward is our own
> signed-64bit timestamp_t. That's unfortunate compared to using the
> standard time_t, but hopefully it would reduce the number of knobs (like
> TIME_T_IS_INT64) in the long run.