1 |
On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:49:17 -0800 |
2 |
Zac Medico <zmedico@g.o> wrote: |
3 |
> > Not non-preservation. Partial and inconsistent corruption. |
4 |
> |
5 |
> Wouldn't "loss of precision" be a more accurate description? Of the |
6 |
> known packages which require timestamp preservation, do any of them |
7 |
> use sub-second precision in their timestamp comparisons? |
8 |
|
9 |
No. When you're dealing with decimals, floating point rounding isn't a |
10 |
simple truncation: |
11 |
|
12 |
>>> 1234567890.999999999 |
13 |
1234567891.0 |
14 |
|
15 |
nor is it a rounding: |
16 |
|
17 |
>>> 1234567890.111111111 |
18 |
1234567890.1111112 |
19 |
|
20 |
The former is particularly bad, since POSIX deals with legacy functions |
21 |
by ignoring the nanosecond part, not by rounding it. |
22 |
|
23 |
-- |
24 |
Ciaran McCreesh |