[issue19715] test_touch_common failure under Windows

[Tim Peters]

Tim Peters added the comment:

[MvL]
> One "obvious" conversion error is this code from 
>
> http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/4101bfaa76fe/Python/pytime.c#l35
>
> microseconds = large.QuadPart / 10 - 11644473600000000;
>
> This discard the 100ns part of the current time, rounding it
> down to the previous microsecond. As a result, the second
> time stamp can be up to a microsecond earlier than the previous
> one.

I don't think so, on two counts.  First, if *both* timestamps went through this code, it's monotonically non-decreasing.  That is, if ts1 and ts2 are two full-precision (100ns resolution) timestamps, and ts1 < ts2, then calling the transformation above `T` we'll always have T(ts1) <= T(ts2).  T(ts1) can be equal to T(ts2) even if ts1 < ts2, but T(ts1) > T(ts2) can't happen (because C's unsigned integer division truncates).

Second, the version of the test code that compared .st_mtime_ns members showed timestamps with 100-ns resolution.  Like:

    self.assertGreaterEqual(c_mtime_ns, old_mtime_ns)
AssertionError: 1385179768290263800 not greater than or equal to 1385179768290264500

Note the trailing "800" and "500" in those.  So it's not possible that those timestamps came from a _PyTime_timeval (which the code you showed is constructing) - that struct records no info about nanoseconds.

There's another clue I don't know what to make of: I've seen dozens of these failures now, and I believe that in every case the original timestamp (the one that should be older) _always_ ended with "500" (in st_mtime_ns format).  That's true in the example I posted just above, and also true of the 3 examples I posted in msg203913.

LOL!  So much for that clue - while I was typing I got this failure:

AssertionError: 1385181174851605800 not greater than or equal to 1385181174851606000

So the older timestamp in failing cases always ends with "500" or "000" ;-)

----------

_______________________________________
Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue19715>
_______________________________________