[ILUG] Linux's 2038 Bug

[Richard Eibrand]

Hi all,


Just read this article http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/may/06linux.htm,  
and was wondering what peoples thoughts are with regards this problem.  
Some more scare mongering?

Here is a snippet to get a gist,


[snip]
"The bug has its origins in the way the C language, which has been used to  
write Linux, calculates time. C uses the 'time_t' data type to represent  
dates and times. ('time_t' is an integer that counts the number of seconds  
since 12.00 a.m. GMT,  January 1 1970.)

This data is stored in 32 bits, or units of memory. The first of these  
bits is for the positive or negative sign, and the remaining 31 are used  
to store the number. The highest number that these 31 bits can store works  
out to 2147483647.

Calculated from the start of January 1 1970, this number would represent  
the 2038 time and date given at the top. Problems would arise when the  
system times of computers running on Linux reach this number. They can't  
go any forward and their value actually would change to -- 2147483647,  
which translated to December 13 1901! That will lead many programs to  
return errors or crash altogether."
[/snip]


R

-- 
Richard Eibrand
http://eibrand.net
richard at eibrand.net