Re: are we going to have a Y2.1K problem like Y2K?

[David Zelinsky <temp1111@dedekind.net>]

Dan Jacobson <jidanni@dman.ddts.net> writes:

> $ touch -t 200011111111 a
> $ touch -t 201111111111 a
> $ touch -t 211111111111 a
> touch: invalid date format `211111111111'
> 
> Oh great, can't deal with dates in the next century.  Hope this isn't
> a deep routed problem for all of Unix or something.

Unix systems traditionally represent dates in number of seconds since
the beginning of 1970 (symbolizing the birth of Unix, I guess).  If
dates are stored as signed 32-bit quantities, then things go bad after
2^31 seconds, which is about 68 years, or sometime in 2038.

With any luck, by then all machines will use 64 bit words and all
relevant software will be updated to recognize the dates beyond 2^31
seconds.  Or maybe not...

--
David Zelinsky