3 ms·

Times before 1970 can be stored as negative numbers.

• bad_user 14y ago
  True, but many libraries still do not know how to deal with negative timestamps. For instance PHP on Windows, prior to 5.1.0. MySQL's FROM_UNIXTIME was also not working last time I tried it. And many applications and scripts can break, like those that store and manipulate timestamps assuming a certain format (e.g. positive integers). The Unix timestamp was created to deal with timestamps, not with date representations. Therefore this requirement (dates prior to 1970) was not an issue that had to be dealt with explicitly.
  • ZenPsycho 14y ago
    calling out PHP is a bit of a cheap shot. Nothing works properly in PHP.