regression: fs.utimes/futimes for dates before unix epoch

[isaacs]

As of Node v4, fs.utimes and fs.utimes are truncating the atime and mtime values to a positive integer.

This is incorrect, and makes it impossible to set atime and mtime values before 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z without creating a Date object.

It looks like this is the culprit:

function toUnixTimestamp(time) {
 // eslint-disable-next-line eqeqeq
 if (typeof time === 'string' && +time == time) {
 return +time;
 }
 if (Number.isFinite(time)) {
 if (time < 0) {
 return Date.now() / 1000;

[MylesBorins]

@isaacs is this recently introduced in v4.8.3? Is there an earlier version of v4.x where this is not happening?

[TimothyGu]

It was introduced in #2387 (specifically in #2387 (comment)), backported to version 4.1.0. In other words, only version 4.0.0 in the v4.x branch is not affected by the bug.

[gireeshpunathil]

Was this fixed through #15680 ? Given 4.x entering EOL, this looks like a close candidate?
/cc @refack @lpinca

[BridgeAR]

@gireeshpunathil that was a doc update about Infinity and NaN. Are you certain you referenced the correct PR? #15680 is independent from this issue as far as I can tell.

[gireeshpunathil]

probably not - I was just following the linked references.

[kevintab95]

An observation: On specifying a negative timestamp as a string for values before 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z the atime and utime were modified correctly (https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_fs_utimes_path_atime_mtime_callback).

> fs.utimes('random.txt','-9999999999.0','-9999999999.0', function(){})
>.exit

$ stat -x random.txt 
 File: "random.txt"
 Size: 0 FileType: Regular File
Device: 1,4 Inode: 69235639 Links: 1
Access: Mon Feb 10 12:06:41 1653
Modify: Mon Feb 10 12:06:41 1653
Change: Fri Oct 5 01:30:49 2018

Should we document this or figure out a way to fix it? Thanks.

[Fishrock123]

I also cannot reproduce. The example above works fine on node master so I guess it was fixed some time since 4.x. This won't be fixed in 4.x, of course, since that branch has been sunset.