bug#8572: du/bigtime skip reason

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

building coreutils 8.12 on a Linux 2.6.25.20, glibc 2.8 machine, "make check"
shows these lines in 32-bits only (not in 64-bit builds):

  bigtime: skipped test: file system cannot represent big time stamps
  SKIP: du/bigtime

The message suggests that it's a problem with the file system. But then,
why do I get the SKIP then in a 32-bit build and a PASS in a 64-bit build?

The answer is that the behaviour of the 'touch' program depends on whether
it is built in 32-bit mode or in 64-bit mode:

$ ./coreutils-8.12-64bit/src/touch -d @922337203685477580 future; echo $?
0

$ ./coreutils-8.12-32bit/src/touch -d @922337203685477580 future; echo $?
./coreutils-8.12-32bit/src/touch: invalid date format address@hidden'
1

I would argue that when entering a date, this should not happen. For numbers,
ok, but here a number is meant to be converted to a date.

Bruno
-- 
In memoriam Marian Batko <http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Batko>
<http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/m/index.php?Itemid=8&id=478&option=com_content&task=view>