2004-09-27 Roland McGrath <roland@redhat.com>
[glibc.git] / time / difftime.c
blob228090c057cc4dc641509e84c360660634df44d4
1 /* Copyright (C) 1991, 1994, 1996, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2 This file is part of the GNU C Library.
4 The GNU C Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
5 modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
6 License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
7 version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
9 The GNU C Library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
10 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
11 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
12 Lesser General Public License for more details.
14 You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
15 License along with the GNU C Library; if not, write to the Free
16 Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
17 02111-1307 USA. */
19 #include <time.h>
20 #include <values.h>
23 /* Return the difference between TIME1 and TIME0. */
24 double
25 __difftime (time1, time0)
26 time_t time1;
27 time_t time0;
29 /* Algorithm courtesy Paul Eggert (eggert@twinsun.com). */
31 time_t delta, hibit;
33 if (sizeof (time_t) < sizeof (double))
34 return (double) time1 - (double) time0;
35 if (sizeof (time_t) < sizeof (long double))
36 return (long double) time1 - (long double) time0;
38 if (time1 < time0)
39 return - __difftime (time0, time1);
41 /* As much as possible, avoid loss of precision by computing the
42 difference before converting to double. */
43 delta = time1 - time0;
44 if (delta >= 0)
45 return delta;
47 /* Repair delta overflow. */
48 hibit = (~ (time_t) 0) << (_TYPEBITS (time_t) - 1);
50 /* The following expression rounds twice, which means the result may not
51 be the closest to the true answer. For example, suppose time_t is
52 64-bit signed int, long_double is IEEE 754 double with default
53 rounding, time1 = 9223372036854775807 and time0 = -1536. Then the
54 true difference is 9223372036854777343, which rounds to
55 9223372036854777856 with a total error of 513. But delta overflows to
56 -9223372036854774273, which rounds to -9223372036854774784, and
57 correcting this by subtracting 2 * (long_double) hibit (i.e. by adding
58 2**64 = 18446744073709551616) yields 9223372036854776832, which rounds
59 to 9223372036854775808 with a total error of 1535 instead. This
60 problem occurs only with very large differences. It's too painful to
61 fix this portably. We are not alone in this problem; many C compilers
62 round twice when converting large unsigned types to small floating
63 types, so if time_t is unsigned the "return delta" above has the same
64 double-rounding problem. */
65 return delta - 2 * (long double) hibit;
67 strong_alias (__difftime, difftime)