summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/time/difftime.c
blob: 49c5bfbc5cb738dabc17e8e21295537e82102e34 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
/* Copyright (C) 1991, 1994 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This file is part of the GNU C Library.

The GNU C Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version.

The GNU C Library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
Library General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public
License along with the GNU C Library; see the file COPYING.LIB.  If
not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave,
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.  */

#include <ansidecl.h>
#include <time.h>


/* Return the difference between TIME1 and TIME0.  */
double
DEFUN(difftime, (time1, time0), time_t time1 AND time_t time0)
{
  /* Algorithm courtesy Paul Eggert (eggert@twinsun.com).  */

  time_t delta, hibit;

  if (sizeof (time_t) < sizeof (double))
    return (double) time1 - (double) time0;
  if (sizeof (time_t) < sizeof (LONG_DOUBLE))
    return (LONG_DOUBLE) time1 - (LONG_DOUBLE) time0;

  if (time1 < time0)
    return - difftime (time0, time1);

  /* As much as possible, avoid loss of precision by computing the
    difference before converting to double.  */
  delta = time1 - time0;
  if (delta >= 0)
    return delta;

  /* Repair delta overflow.  */
  hibit = 1;
  while ((hibit <<= 1) > 0)
    continue;

  /* The following expression rounds twice, which means the result may not
     be the closest to the true answer.  For example, suppose time_t is
     64-bit signed int, long_double is IEEE 754 double with default
     rounding, time1 = 9223372036854775807 and time0 = -1536.  Then the
     true difference is 9223372036854777343, which rounds to
     9223372036854777856 with a total error of 513.  But delta overflows to
     -9223372036854774273, which rounds to -9223372036854774784, and
     correcting this by subtracting 2 * (long_double) hibit (i.e. by adding
     2**64 = 18446744073709551616) yields 9223372036854776832, which rounds
     to 9223372036854775808 with a total error of 1535 instead.  This
     problem occurs only with very large differences.  It's too painful to
     fix this portably.  We are not alone in this problem; many C compilers
     round twice when converting large unsigned types to small floating
     types, so if time_t is unsigned the "return delta" above has the same
     double-rounding problem.  */
  return delta - 2 * (LONG_DOUBLE) hibit;
}