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Date:      Wed, 21 Apr 1999 14:59:49 +1000 (EST)
From:      "Daniel O'Callaghan" <danny@hilink.com.au>
To:        "Chad R. Larson" <chad@DCFinc.com>
Cc:        Stephen Montgomery-Smith <stephen@math.missouri.edu>, stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Year 2000
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.10.9904211450330.24853-100000@enya.clari.net.au>
In-Reply-To: <199904200055.RAA02113@freeway.dcfinc.com>

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On Mon, 19 Apr 1999, Chad R. Larson wrote:

> > 
> > Just wondering if the internet will face serious problems in 2038
> > because of all the `old' unix software still running it.
> 
> I believe the assumption is that within 30 years, UNIXs will have
> moved time_t from a "long" to a "long long" (or "quad" or whatever).
> Most the commercial vendors (HP-UX, Solaris) have already done this as
> part of their 64-bit UNIX initiatives.

In my y2k review of the FreeBSD sources, I found *lots* of comments to the
effect that the code was written to work to 2037 and not beyond.
Unfortunately, progressing beyond 2037 is not going to be simply a matter
of changing the definition of time_t and doing 'make world'.

What we really need is a date calculation library which handles all of the
calculations which are done in a plethora of ways now, so that no-one
needs to make up a half-baked method again. (and yes, I know that "no-one
needs" != "no-one will")

Danny



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