feat(c-binding): accept explicit span timestamps

Add `start_time_ns` to `dd_span_options_t` and introduce
`dd_span_finish_with_time(end_time_ns)`. Both accept wall-clock
nanoseconds since the UNIX epoch; 0 preserves today's "use current
time" behaviour so existing callers are unaffected.

The conversion from wall-ns to the tracer's internal `TimePoint`
derives the steady_clock tick from the current system/steady offset,
so duration math stays correct regardless of which endpoint is
explicit and which is implicit.

Motivated by FFI callers (e.g. the Kong plugin) that capture
timestamps in their host runtime before crossing the FFI boundary,
where using "now" inside the binding would lose the pre-FFI portion
of the span and bake in call-overhead skew.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: adeshkumar1

binding/c/include/datadog/c/tracer.h

@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 #pragma once
 
 #include <stddef.h>
+#include <stdint.h>
 
 #if defined(_WIN32)
 #if defined(DD_TRACE_C_BUILDING)
@@ -51,6 +52,9 @@ typedef struct {
   const char* service_type;
   const char* environment;
   const char* version;
+  // Wall-clock span start time in nanoseconds since the UNIX epoch.
+  // 0 means "use the current time".
+  int64_t start_time_ns;
 } dd_span_options_t;
 
 // Error codes returned by the C binding.
@@ -179,6 +183,15 @@ DD_TRACE_C_API dd_span_t* dd_span_create_child(dd_span_t* span_handle,
 // @param span_handle Span handle
 DD_TRACE_C_API void dd_span_finish(dd_span_t* span_handle);
 
+// Finish a span using an explicit end time given as wall-clock nanoseconds
+// since the UNIX epoch. If end_time_ns is 0, behaves like dd_span_finish
+// (uses the current time). No-op if span_handle is NULL.
+//
+// @param span_handle Span handle
+// @param end_time_ns Wall-clock end time in nanoseconds since the UNIX epoch
+DD_TRACE_C_API void dd_span_finish_with_time(dd_span_t* span_handle,
+                                              int64_t end_time_ns);
+
 // Get the trace ID as a zero-padded hex string.
 //
 // @param span_handle  Span handle

binding/c/src/tracer.cpp

@@ -1,9 +1,11 @@
 #include "datadog/c/tracer.h"
 
+#include <datadog/clock.h>
 #include <datadog/hex.h>
 #include <datadog/trace_segment.h>
 #include <datadog/tracer.h>
 
+#include <chrono>
 #include <cstddef>
 #include <cstring>
 #include <string>
@@ -44,6 +46,21 @@ class ContextWriter : public dd::DictWriter {
   }
 };
 
+// Convert a wall-clock timestamp (nanoseconds since UNIX epoch) into a
+// TimePoint. The steady-clock tick is derived from the current offset
+// between system_clock::now() and steady_clock::now() so that duration
+// calculations (which are done in steady-clock space) remain meaningful.
+dd::TimePoint wall_ns_to_timepoint(int64_t wall_ns) {
+  const auto wall = std::chrono::system_clock::time_point(
+      std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::system_clock::duration>(
+          std::chrono::nanoseconds(wall_ns)));
+  const auto now_wall = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
+  const auto now_tick = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
+  const auto offset = now_wall - wall;
+  return dd::TimePoint{
+      wall, now_tick - std::chrono::duration_cast<dd::Duration>(offset)};
+}
+
 dd::SpanConfig make_span_config(dd_span_options_t options) {
   dd::SpanConfig span_config;
   if (options.name != nullptr) {
@@ -64,6 +81,9 @@ dd::SpanConfig make_span_config(dd_span_options_t options) {
   if (options.version != nullptr) {
     span_config.version = options.version;
   }
+  if (options.start_time_ns != 0) {
+    span_config.start = wall_ns_to_timepoint(options.start_time_ns);
+  }
   return span_config;
 }
 
@@ -249,12 +269,20 @@ dd_span_t *dd_span_create_child(dd_span_t *span_handle,
   }
 }
 
-void dd_span_finish(dd_span_t *span_handle) {
+void dd_span_finish_with_time(dd_span_t *span_handle, int64_t end_time_ns) {
   if (span_handle == nullptr) {
     return;
   }
-  reinterpret_cast<dd::Span *>(span_handle)
-      ->set_end_time(std::chrono::steady_clock::now());
+  auto *span = reinterpret_cast<dd::Span *>(span_handle);
+  if (end_time_ns == 0) {
+    span->set_end_time(std::chrono::steady_clock::now());
+  } else {
+    span->set_end_time(wall_ns_to_timepoint(end_time_ns).tick);
+  }
+}
+
+void dd_span_finish(dd_span_t *span_handle) {
+  dd_span_finish_with_time(span_handle, 0);
 }
 
 int dd_span_get_trace_id(dd_span_t *span_handle, char *buffer,

binding/c/test/test_c_binding.cpp

@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 #include <datadog/c/tracer.h>
 #include <datadog/tracer.h>
 
+#include <chrono>
+
 #include "mocks/collectors.h"
 #include "null_logger.h"
 #include "test.h"
@@ -91,7 +93,11 @@ TEST_CASE("tracer new propagates error", "[c_binding]") {
 TEST_CASE("span create, tag, finish, free", "[c_binding]") {
   auto ctx = make_tracer();
 
-  auto *span = dd_tracer_create_span(ctx.tracer, {.name = "test.op"});
+  const int64_t start_ns = 1'700'000'000'000'000'000LL;
+  const int64_t end_ns = start_ns + 42'000'000LL;
+
+  auto *span = dd_tracer_create_span(
+      ctx.tracer, {.name = "test.op", .start_time_ns = start_ns});
   REQUIRE(span != nullptr);
 
   dd_span_set_tag(span, "http.method", "GET");
@@ -100,7 +106,7 @@ TEST_CASE("span create, tag, finish, free", "[c_binding]") {
   dd_span_set_error(span, 1);
   dd_span_set_error_message(span, "something broke");
 
-  dd_span_finish(span);
+  dd_span_finish_with_time(span, end_ns);
   dd_span_free(span);
 
   const auto &sd = ctx.collector->first_span();
@@ -109,6 +115,15 @@ TEST_CASE("span create, tag, finish, free", "[c_binding]") {
   CHECK(sd.service == "user-service");
   CHECK(sd.error == true);
   CHECK(sd.tags.at("error.message") == "something broke");
+
+  const auto start_wall_ns =
+      std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::nanoseconds>(
+          sd.start.wall.time_since_epoch())
+          .count();
+  CHECK(start_wall_ns == start_ns);
+  const auto diff =
+      sd.duration - std::chrono::nanoseconds(end_ns - start_ns);
+  CHECK(std::chrono::abs(diff) < std::chrono::milliseconds(1));
 }
 
 TEST_CASE("create span with resource", "[c_binding]") {