error C4996: 'ctime': This function or variable may be unsafe

Question

I have a large project about static source code analysis, and everything compiles successfully, except for one thing. I have provided the error message in the title. The point that confuses me is that it gives an error message saying unsafe. I thought it should be just warning, not an error. By the way, I'm using Visual Studio 2012. Here is the part of the code where I get the error, in ctime. If someone can help me overcome this error, I would be glad.

void CppCheckExecutor::reportProgress(const std::string &filename, const char stage[], const std::size_t value)
{
     (void)filename;

     if (!time1)
         return;

     // Report progress messages every 10 seconds
     const std::time_t time2 = std::time(NULL);
     if (time2 >= (time1 + 10)) {
         time1 = time2;

         // current time in the format "Www Mmm dd hh:mm:ss yyyy"
         const std::string str(std::ctime(&time2));

         // format a progress message
         std::ostringstream ostr;
         ostr << "progress: "
              << stage
              << ' ' << value << '%';
         if (_settings->_verbose)
             ostr << " time=" << str.substr(11, 8);

         // Report progress message
         reportOut(ostr.str());
     }
}

Answer 1

If you're sure no safety issues in your code, you can disable this by #pragma warning(disable : 4996).