Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:12:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Toren <rpt@sso.wdl.lmco.com> To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: fetch Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970601190409.9881A-100000@hps> In-Reply-To: <199705312112.RAA02809@radford.i-plus.net>
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I think this type of thinking ("assume current century") is how
the 2-digit years got started; and what got us into the 2K problem.
The boundry conditions are where that assumption breaks. Clock drift or just
lucky timing has the item dated 12-31-99 23:58 and received 1-1-00 00:03.
Was it sent 99 years in the future? The next kludge is to create some special
cases where the data appears too far in the future to be a clock sync problem
(99 years?). But even that will break in some cases where 5 years may be
reasonable....
Best not depend (do anything destructive) upon any date that is
ambigious....
On Sat, 31 May 1997, Troy Settle wrote:
> From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> My ISP (demon.co.uk) sends http dates like this:
> >>
> >> Sat, 31-May-97 10:48:56 GMT
> >>
> >> According to http.c in the fetch sources, it's expecting
> >> a full year here, ie.
> >>
> >> Sat, 31-May-1997 10:48:56 .....
> >>
> >> Has anyone any objection to me making it allow the first ?
> >
> >As long as you treat it as the year 0097, no objection at all;
> >otherwise you are introducing a year 2000 error.
> >
> >Has demon refused to correct their server software? Or have
> >they not been asked?
> >
>
> Why not treat a 2 digit year as a year in the current century? no
> y2k problem. no y3k problem, etc..
>
> Really though, a 2 digit year is just a lazy way of writing the date.
> It's human readable, but is a pain for software to interpret
> correctly. There's no reason for any software to use a 2 digit year
> except for formatted user input/output.
>
> Just an opinion,
>
> --
> Troy Settle <st@i-Plus.net>
> Network Administrator, iPlus Internet Services
> http://www.i-Plus.net
>
>
>
====================================================
Rip Toren | The bad news is that C++ is not an object-oriented |
rpt@sso.wdl.lmco.com | programming language. .... The good news is that |
| C++ supports object-oriented programming. |
| C++ Programming & Fundamental Concepts |
| by Anderson & Heinze |
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