Unix Tip: SEPT 9TH DATE UPDATE

[Net Llama!]

Huh? Why are we getting a warning about something that was relevant a year
ago?


On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Unix Guru Universe wrote:

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> 			      UNIX GURU UNIVERSE
> 			         UNIX HOT TIP
>
> 			Unix Tip 2074 - September  5, 2002
>
> 		    http://www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/show?tip.today
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> SEPT 9TH DATE UPDATE
>
> While this statement is from IBM, Y2K patches and updates
> on your flavor of Unix should have been fixed by now.
> If you feel you are at risk you may want to
> check with the software vendors that you deal with.
>
>
> ### BEGIN IBM MESSAGE ####
> As is well known, UNIX time is kept internally in seconds, counting
> upward from January 1st, 1970. This number hit 1 million (1,000,000)
> in March of 1973, and will hit one billion (1,000,000,000) on
> Sun Sep  9 01:46:39 2001 UTC This change, from a number which can be
> represented in 9 decimal digits to a 10-digit number, is not
> expected to cause any problems for UNIX systems.
>
> The reason is that, excepting for a very limited number of uses, this
> value is not stored as decimal digits. Instead, it is stored as an
> integer value (a 32-bit binary variable) which can be used safely
> until the year 2038. The uses in UNIX of a decimal format for the
> "seconds time" value are primarily in portable file formats, such as
> tar, cpio, and ar. These formats have always supported at least eleven
> decimal (or octal in some cases) digits, easily handling UNIX's
> one-billionth "birthday".
>

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman				netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo		     http://netllama.ipfox.com