Re: Y2038

[David Cuthbert <dacut@xxxxxxxxx>]

Matthew Dillon wrote:
>     This has been discussed many times on the FreeBSD lists.  The FreeBSD
>     folks would prefer to simply wait for all architectures to become 64 bits.
>     e.g. for IA32 to die out.  I would prefer to make time_t a 64 bit 
>     quantity.  But both 'solutions' have serious problems.  time_t is assumed
>     to be a 'long' in a great deal of third party code.

Eh, I'd just say break 'em.  We'll patch them up in ports, if need be. 
On this front, DF would be providing a service by finding time_t 
portability bugs in third-party code.  See, enough spin will make any 
bug a feature :-).

The vast majority of breakage will require one-line patches (long -> 
time_t).

The hard part is if a program marshalls a time_t out to disk.  On this 
front, even properly-written programs may have issues with old data files.