GNU bug report logs - #77535
timeout treats very short durations as `0`

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Message #10 received at 77535-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: Nicolas Boichat <nicolas <at> boichat.ch>, 77535-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77535: timeout treats very short durations as `0`
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2025 20:27:55 +0100

On 04/04/2025 16:26, Nicolas Boichat wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Version: timeout (GNU coreutils) 9.6, Archlinux, x86-64.
> 
> While playing with different duration parameters to `timeout`, I
> noticed that extremely short durations, like `1e-3000`, are rounded
> down to `0`. The problem is that `0` has a special meaning (disabling
> the timeout), so I don't think this is desired.
> 
> All of these commands exit immediately:
> ```
> timeout 0.0001 cat
> timeout 1e-100 cat
> timeout 1e-300 cat
> timeout 1e-323 cat
> ```
> 
> But these never exits:
> ```
> timeout 1e-324 cat
> timeout 1e-3000 cat
> ```
> 
> As if we had typed:
> ```
> timeout 0 cat
> ```
> 
> I think there is some logic in `printf` to handle float parsing
> underflow, so maybe this can be reused in `timeout` as well.

The following should avoid this issue.

Marking this as done.

thanks!
Pádraig

diff --git a/src/timeout.c b/src/timeout.c
index 578d71070..6756cd888 100644
--- a/src/timeout.c
+++ b/src/timeout.c
@@ -371,6 +371,10 @@ parse_duration (char const *str)
       usage (EXIT_CANCELED);
     }

+  /* Clamp underflow to 1ns, as 0 disables the timeout.  */
+  if (duration == 0 && errno == ERANGE)
+    duration = 1e-9;
+
   return duration;
 }

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