esp_timer_get_time return type

[michprev]

Hi,
What is the reason why https://esp-idf.readthedocs.io/en/lates ... _get_timev returns int64_t instead of uint64_t?

[loboris]

Uinx time representation for dates before Thursday, 1 January 1970 are negative, for example
-1000000 -> Sat, 20 Dec 1969 10:13:20 GMT

[ESP_igrr]

The reason was that the return type represents a moment in time, relative to some point (startup). So time can be both positive and negative, even if this function only ever returns positive values. This is similar to time_t being signed on most systems even though time() always returns positive values, unless one has a time machine. With a 64-bit type, loss of one bit of range would not matter in practice, plus arithmetic with signed types is less error prone.

[michprev]

I should have looked at commit message, thank you!