What is time_t ultimately a typedef to?

Question

I searched my Linux box and saw this typedef:

typedef __time_t time_t;

But I could not find the __time_t definition.

Answer 1

What is ultimately a time_t typedef to?

Robust code does not care what the type is.

C species time_t to be a real type like double, long long, int64_t, int, etc.

It even could be unsigned as the return values from many time function indicating error is not -1, but (time_t)(-1) - This implementation choice is uncommon.

The point is that the "need-to-know" the type is rare. Code should be written to avoid the need.

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Yet a common "need-to-know" occurs when code wants to print the raw time_t. Casting to the widest integer type will accommodate most modern cases.

time_t now = 0;
time(&now);
printf("%jd", (intmax_t) now);
// or 
printf("%lld", (long long) now);

Casting to a double or long double will work too, yet could provide inexact decimal output

printf("%.16e", (double) now);