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The type , precision, and range of clock_t are implementation defined. time_t is specified as an "arithmetic type capable of representing times." as size_t, which is the unsigned result of the sizeof operator. However, how time is encoded within the arithmetic type is unspecified.

Non-Compliant Code Example

However, the way time is encoded within this arithmetic type by the function time() is unspecified. See unspecified behavior 48 in Annex J of the C Standard. Because the encoding is unspecified, there is no safe way to manually perform arithmetic on the type, and as a result, the values should not be modified directly.

Note that POSIX specifies that the time() function must return a value of type time_t, representing time in seconds since the Epoch. POSIX-conforming applications that are not intended to be portable to other environments therefore may safely perform arithmetic operations on time_t objects.

Noncompliant Code Example

This noncompliant code example attempts to execute doThis code attempts to execute do_some_work() multiple times until at least seconds_to_work has passed. However, because the encoding is not defined, there is no guarantee that adding start to seconds_to_work will result in adding seconds_to_work seconds.

int do_work(int seconds_to_work) {
  time_t start;
  start = time(NULL);

  if (start == (time_t)(-1)) {
    /* Handle error */
  }
  while (time(NULL) < start + secondseconds_to_work) {
    /*  do_some_work();... */
  }
  return 0;
}

Compliant Solution

This compliant solution uses difftime() to determine the difference between two time_t values. The difftime() function returns the number of seconds, from the second parameter until the first parameter and returns the result, as a double.

int do_work(int seconds_to_work) {
  time_t start, current = time(NULL);
  starttime_t current = time()start;

  if (start == (time_t)(-1)) {
    /* Handle error */
  }
  while (timedifftime(current, start) < start + secondseconds_to_work) {
    current = time(NULL);
    if (current == (time_t)(-1)) {
       /* Handle error */
    }
    if (difftime(current, start) >= seconds_to_work)
      break;/* ... */
  }
    do_some_work();
  }
return 0;
}

Note that this loop may still might not exit , as because the range of time_t may might not be able to represent two times seconds_to_work apart.

Risk Assessment

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Using time_t incorrectly can lead to broken logic that can place a program in an infinite loop or cause an expected logic branch to not execute.

Recommendation Rule	Severity	Likelihood	Remediation Cost	Priority	Level
MSC05-A	1 (low)	1 (low)	2 (medium)	P2	L3

References

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Automated Detection

Related Vulnerabilities

Search for vulnerabilities resulting from the violation of this rule on the CERT website.

Related Guidelines

Bibliography

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Image Added Image Added Image Added Wiki Markup\[[ISO/IEC 9899-1999|AA. C References#ISO/IEC 9899-1999]] Section 7.23, "Date and time <time.h>"