🚀 go-pugleaf

ntier@n-tier.co.nz wrote:
: Dear Folks!

: Does anyone out there know how the Year 2000 problem might impact UNIX
: systems? I'm talking about the representation of years as 2 digits.
: This occurs on some systems (eg MVS), but I was wondering if any
: problems will occur on UNIX as well. I am not a UNIX user myself, so I
: was hoping someone who knows UNIX can enlighten me.

Only applications that have decided to store the date as a two digit 
integer, and consider strict numeral conversions will have the problem.  
UNIX is scheduled to run out of "time", as it stands in 2038.  However, 
that gives people a bit of time to work around it.  The C programming 
language neatly gets around an integer time problem by saying that time_t 
is a constantly increasing value...It is NOT guaranteed to be an int or a 
long int...just ever-growing.  

Thus, only applications that use 2 digit years are subject to the 
possibility of problems on 01-01-00

There is an excellent article on this written by Brian Hayes, although I 
don't have the URL handy, a search for "Computing Science Waiting for 
01-01-00" and "Brian Hayes", should no doubt find it.

Cheers,

B.
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