#1300 Wrong/confusing sample: Custom serializer for struct timeval

[hfrmobile]

/*
    struct_timeval.h

    Custom serializer for struct timeval as xsd:dateTime

    Because time_t (binds to xsd:dateTime) lacks fractional seconds, struct
    timeval can be used to represent microseconds since 1970-01-01.

    #import this file into your gSOAP .h file to enable struct timeval
    serialization and use the serializable xsd__dateTime type.

    The struct timeval represents dates since 1970-01-01 with microsecond
    precision:

    struct timeval {
        time_t       tv_sec;   // seconds since Jan. 1, 1970
        suseconds_t  tv_usec;  // and microseconds
    };

    To automate the wsdl2h-mapping of xsd:dateTime to struct timeval, add
    this line to the typemap.dat file:

    xsd__dateTime = #import "custom/struct_timeval.h" | xsd__dateTime

    The typemap.dat file is used by wsdl2h to map types (wsdl2h option -t).

    When using soapcpp2 option -q<name> or -p<name>, you must change
    struct_timeval.c as follows:

        #include "soapH.h"  ->  #include "nameH.h"

    Compiler and link your code with struct_timeval.c
    ...
*/

Wrong:

    struct timeval {
        time_t       tv_sec;   // seconds since Jan. 1, 1970
        suseconds_t  tv_usec;  // and microseconds
    };

Why: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winsock/ns-winsock-timeval

The timeval structure is used to specify a time interval.

So the whole sample does not make sense at all and leads developers using timeval for DateTime which is not correct, since timeval representing a "time interval" (e.g. timeout) and for this a long (32bit) is enough of course and no Y2K38 issue here!

Use time_t or tm instead! There are already custom serializers here for xsd:DateTime!

[hfrmobile]

I was (a bit) wrong...

timeval taken from "winsock2.h" is wrong, timeval taken from "sys/time.h" is correct. Maybe you add that information (from sys/time.h) to the source header for the struct_timeval serializer, specially for Windows developers ;-)

Thanks

[hfrmobile]

Since having special requirements (precision of microseconds needed) + code must work under Windows and Linux, I added following to lib\stdsoap2.h:

// =======================================================================
//          Make 64bit "timeval" available for Windows and Linux
// =======================================================================
#if _WIN32
  #include <time.h>

  struct soaptimeval {
    time_t tv_sec;  /* seconds */
    long tv_usec;   /* and microseconds */
  };
#else
  #define timeval soaptimeval;
#endif

My custom serializer using soaptimeval (adjusted the timeval serializer accordingly).

I think it is worth to mention that "struct_timeval serializer" can't be "Y2K38 fit" under Windows.