Re: p6: maximum delta-seconds of 2147483648

Hi Julian,

On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 08:20:08AM +0100, Julian Reschke wrote:
> On 2013-11-14 22:26, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> >Hi Julian,
> >
> >On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 10:18:23PM +0100, Julian Reschke wrote:
> >>On 2013-11-14 13:31, Julian Reschke wrote:
> >>>Agreed.
> >>>
> >>>This is the only current issue that holds up draft -25. If no further
> >>>information comes up, I'll apply this change (unless Roy beats me to
> >>>it), and submit -25 over the weekend.
> >>>
> >>>Best regards, Julian
> >>
> >>Proposed patch:
> >><http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/attachment/ticket/512/512.diff>
> >
> >  "A recipient parsing a delta-seconds value ought to use an arithmetic 
> >  type
> >   of at least 32 bits of signed integer range."
> >                          ^^^^^^
> >You meant unsigned, right ? Because the value 2147483648 requires at least
> >32 bits unsigned or 33 bits signed, but 32 bits signed never satisfies this
> >requirement.
> 
> The proposed text is:
> 
> >   A recipient parsing a delta-seconds value ought to use an
> >   arithmetic type of at least 32 bits of signed integer range.
> 
> That is consistent with the previous requirement of "MUST use an 
> arithmetic type of at least 31 bits of range", no?

Yes but it's still confusing. I read it as "declare a variable delta_seconds
of type signed int" and later "check if that variable equals or is greater
than 2147483648", which value cannot be represented with this type. So this
is confusing for an implementer. Also, I know many developers who don't know
the exact limits of the types they manipulate, especially in the +/-1 at the
end.

Also quite often, the integer parsing functions will return undefined values
for the inputs they can't parse, which is worse. Here I'm pretty sure we'll
see this :

   int delta_seconds;

   ...
   delta_seconds = atoi(age);

   if (delta_seconds >= 2147483648)
       delta_seconds = INT_MAX;

But this will never match and the atoi() will return crap, sometimes -1, or 0
or whatever without the developer even being aware of this.

Is there a reason for this type to be signed ?

Best regards,
Willy

Received on Friday, 15 November 2013 07:29:44 UTC