RE: RFC: should GMime use GDateTime instead of time_t?

[Jeffrey Stedfast <jestedfa microsoft com>]

Hey Albrecht,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Albrecht Dreß [mailto:albrecht dress arcor de]
> Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2017 10:54 AM
> To: Jeffrey Stedfast <jestedfa microsoft com>
> Cc: balsa-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: RFC: should GMime use GDateTime instead of time_t?
>
> Hi Jeff:
>
> Am 26.03.17 14:50 schrieb(en) Jeffrey Stedfast via balsa-list:
> > Currently, g_mime_message_get_date() is somewhat awkward in that it
> returns a time_t but also has a int *tzone parameter that gets set to the
> timezone offset.
>
> I wonder if this interface actually works for all cases, as the docs for 2.6 say
> "int *tz_offset: pointer to timezone offset (in +/- hours)".  But some time
> zones do not have an integral offset relative to utc (e.g. India = 5 hours 30
> minutes - for ~1.2 * 10**9 people!).
[Jeffrey Stedfast] 

The integer offset isn't in number of hours, it's in seconds I believe. I know it works for x:30 timezones. 
So that's not an issue.

> > I only just recently even discovered that Glib had a GDateTime and thought
> *maybe* it might be a better alternative, but figured I'd check with the 2
> main projects using GMime to see what your thoughts were.
> > Would it make your tasks easier? Harder?
>
> It would require changing the message object in Balsa to use a GDateTime *
> instead of a time_t.  I think the changes are rather limited and not difficult.
> The work of a rainy November afternoon... ;-)
[Jeffrey Stedfast] 

I don't think switching to GDateTime would take too much effort. Certainly doable in a single night of 
hacking.

> > I personally don't mind the time_t API, especially since it's unlike you'll be
> adding/subtracting time from it and there are already ways of formatting
> date strings with it (for display purposes).
>
> GLib comes with g_date_time_format().  Or use g_date_time_to_unix()
> which has the advantage to be year-2038-safe on 32-bit boxes (if any of them
> still work in 2038).
[Jeffrey Stedfast] 

True... although I suspect most machines will be 64bit by then. Most are 64bit now, although oddly still 
running a lot of 32bit software on 64bit machines.

> > I haven't really played with GDateTime so I don't know how useful it would
> really be. Hoping that maybe some of you guys *have* and will perhaps have
> an opinion one way or the other (e.g. "for the love of God, yes! Please use
> GDateTime!" or "Oh hellllllll no!". If not, I'll probably just leave it as it is.
>
> I strongly vote for using GLib types wherever possible.  I.e. not only
> GDateTime, but also gint instead of int, gssize vs. ssize_t, etc. etc.  Even using
> types from e.g. stdint will not always be sufficient, as there are some broken
> compilers around which do not fully implement C standards.  Like M$VC,
> which doesn't even comply fully with IEC9899:1999.  So let the GLib guys deal
> with that crap...
[Jeffrey Stedfast] 

I mostly wanted to make sure it wouldn't be a hastle and it sounds like it wouldn't be...

Jeff