[RFC 11/32] xfs: convert to struct inode_time

[Roger Willcocks]

On Mon, 2014-06-02 at 10:28 +1000, Dave Chinner wrote:

> 
> The 32 bit second counters in timestamps are too small to represent
> time beyond the unix epoch (jan 2038) correctly. Extend the on-disk
> format for a timestamp to include an 8-bit epoch counter so that we
> can extend time for up to 255 Unix epochs. This should be good for
> representing timestamps from 1970 to somewhere around 19,000 A.D....
> 

I assume you're using an 'epoch' variable and not simply using the
padding byte as an eight-bit prefix to the existing 32-bit counter
because the existing counter is signed ?

For long term sanity it might make more sense for the eight-bit value to
be a simple (sign-extended) prefix from 1970.

So if the feature bit is set it's a 40-bit signed time, which is good
for 1970 +/- 17400 years or so.

--
Roger