SUMMARY: [listserv@ugu.com: UNIX TIP: DATE CHANGE SEPT 9TH]

The general consensus is that if you have lame programmers/scripters you're in trouble else this should not be an issue.

Thanks to:

Eider Oliveira
Hindley Nick
Julian, John C. (AIT)
Kevin Graham

On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 03:25:48PM +0100, Hindley Nick wrote:
> probably not very.  Anyone who uses a timestamp stores it as a long not a
> character string.
> 
 
On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 10:25:53AM -0400, JULIAN, JOHN C. (AIT) wrote:
> Worthless, time is kept as a signed 8 byte integer not as digits. Time
> problem shows up about in the year 2030.
> 
On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 07:41:00AM -0700, kevin graham wrote:
> 
> > I received this email yesterday regarding the time() value reaching
> > 10digits for the first time. How serious is this?
> 
> Its not. Its people trying really hard to get excited over non-events.
> Anytime you're dealing with epoch seconds, its stored as an integer value
> (generally a 32bit long). Likewise, there's no good reason to treat it in
> a string context (where # of chars would be significant).
> 
> 2038 is a real problem, when 32bit time overflows, but by then time_t will
> be a 64bit long (..and making this change would just be a recompile) which
> will last indefinately (well, until year 584942419325).
> 
> There's an off-chance that someone did something exceptionally lame when
> saving data to a file and it'll cause problems, however anyone who was
> going to the trouble of storing as epoch seconds (rather than ctime())
> would know better. I'm really quite dissapointed in UGU for publishing
> hype like this w/o better clarification.
> 
> ..kg..

On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 11:45:05AM -0300, Eider Oliveira wrote:
> There is a problema if you have a script that use this value in string 
> format, with fixed length. If you don't, no problems.
> 
> Em Qua 11 Jul 2001 11:19, voc escreveu:
> I received this email yesterday regarding the time() value reaching 10digits
>  for the first time. How serious is this?

On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 04:19:25PM +0200, I wrote:
> I received this email yesterday regarding the time() value reaching 10digits for the first time.
> How serious is this? 
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Unix Guru Universe <listserv@ugu.com> -----
> 
> Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 12:26:30 -0700
> From: Unix Guru Universe <listserv@ugu.com>
> Subject: UNIX TIP: DATE CHANGE SEPT 9TH
> 
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> 
> 			UNIX GURU UNIVERSE & UNIX911.com
> 			         UNIX HOT TIP
> 
> 			Unix Tip 1652 - July 10, 2001
> 
> 		    http://www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/show?tip.today
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> 
> 
> DATE CHANGE SEPT 9TH
> 
> We are checking with SUN and
> other vendors to confirm the
> following tip that was sent 
> in. We wanted to pass it on 
> so those that may be affected
> could plan for the change:
> 
> -----
> 
> The unix time() value becomes 
> 10 digits for the first time on
> Sun Sep  9 01:46:40 2001
> 
> For the first time in modern 
> computer history, the timestamp
> will be something besides 9 digits. 
> That could break things.
> 
> -----
> 
> If anyone knows more please contact
> tips@ugu.com
> 
> 
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-- 
Sugan Moodley
Sysadmin - Miraculum
www.miraculum.com

The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected.
	-- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June 1972