Re: [MacPerl] unsigned longs (68K CPU)

[Diller Ryan <dryan@slonet.org>]

I seem  to recall a discussion about this in the past, but I can't find any
traces.  An old  problem has returned.   It is the conflict between signed
long integers and the 'Time::Local' package,  at least on the 68K CPU.

Long integers in MacPerl 5.1.0 r2b2 are compared as signed numbers,  in
5.0.7 they were unsigned.  In combination with the use of the Macintosh
epoch (1904), this messes up the 'time' modules because they use a negative
number as an error indicator.  Macintosh epoch time values exceeded 2**31
in early 1972.

The different behavior between MacPerl 5.0.7 and 5.1.0b2r2 can be shown with:

        use Time::Local;
        $i = 2**31-1;  $j = $i++;
        print "Sign change: $i  $j\n";

        print "Date problem: ";
        print timegm(0,0,0, 1,0,72), "  ", timegm(0,0,0, 1,1,72), "\n";

Is there an update or non-conflicting work-around?  Changing the library
code is an immediate fix, but I worry about future repercussions.

Diller