Abstract
The Y2K bug is all but forgotten, and the Unix 2038 bug should be a non-issue (unless you are still using software that was compiled more than 30 years earlier). Date-calculating software in use today should be good to the year 9999, and perhaps beyond. Unless, that is, adjustments have been made to the calendar to accommodate the couple of days discrepancy that will have crept in by then.
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On Unix, the system time is stored as seconds since the epoch (1 January 1970) in a 32-bit integer. The maximum capacity of such an integer will be reached on 19 January 2038. This will be (and already is being) solved by using a 64-bit integer, whether on a 64-bit computer with a native integer of that size, or with the field being defined as a 64-bit integer on a 32-bit computer. For a more complete discussion, see The Year 2038 Problem by Roger M. Wilcox at http://pw2.netcom.com/∼rogermw/Y2038.html.
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© 2015 Chris F. A. Johnson and Jayant Varma
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Johnson, C.F.A., Varma, J. (2015). Chapter 8: The Dating Game. In: Shell Scripting Recipes. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-0220-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-0220-3_8
Publisher Name: Apress, Berkeley, CA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4842-0221-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4842-0220-3
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