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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>For a more positive outlook remember what every prospectus says:<br>“Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> Ale <ale-bounces@ale.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Jon "maddog" Hall via Ale<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, April 28, 2026 8:26 AM<br><b>To:</b> Bob Toxen <transam@verysecurelinux.com>; Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale@ale.org><br><b>Cc:</b> Jon "maddog" Hall <jon.maddog.hall@gmail.com><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ale] End of Time, *nix Time<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>Quite frankly at the age of 75, diabetic, three heart attacks and only 26% of my heart capacity left I do not think I have to worry about this.<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>But it was fun reading about it anyway.<span style='font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif'>😜</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 23:54 Bob Toxen via Ale <<a href="mailto:ale@ale.org">ale@ale.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal>I've just uploaded the new and improved code to my web site so please<br>download again and email just me (<a href="mailto:transam@VerySecureLinux.com">transam@VerySecureLinux.com</a>) if you<br>get any more compiler warnings or strange results to be addressed.<br><br>This new version improves the messages to be less cryptinc but the<br>program does assume you know something about how time is handled in<br>*nix. The short answer is that if you have the old signed 32-bit<br>time_t type then the largest year you will see will be 2038 in<br>output of the form "Day-of-week Month Day ##:##:## Year".<br><br>If you get a reference from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy then<br>you have the new 64-bit time_t type and you should be good for the<br>next two billion years.<br><br>Please send me comments to address.<br><br>Bob<br><br>On Sat, Apr 25, 2026 at 02:38:03PM -0400, Jeff Lightner via Ale wrote:<br>> This made me think of my annoyance at logs for some apps that did<br>> epoch timestamps. More than once I wrote a script to calculate human<br>> readable time as it displayed lines from such logs. I???m sure there<br>> are some who can eyeball epoch and convert it mentally to star date and<br>> other clock/calendar systems but I wasn???t one of them. > Which also<br>> made me think of the fact that some logs are in UTC rather than local<br>> time zone time. At least I could do that conversion in my head.<br><br>> Back when we tested for Y2K bugs many of us who were UNIX admins<br>> also tested for future dates against the 32 bit limit and other factors.<br>> I often thought it odd that most UNIX platforms already did 64 bit whereas<br>> many Linux distros didn???t even if they were on a 64 bit processor.<br><br>> From: Ale <<a href="mailto:ale-bounces@ale.org" target="_blank">ale-bounces@ale.org</a>> On Behalf Of Ron via Ale<br>> Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2026 1:29 PM<br>> To: <a href="mailto:ale@ale.org" target="_blank">ale@ale.org</a><br>> Cc: Ron <<a href="mailto:ron@bclug.ca" target="_blank">ron@bclug.ca</a>><br>> Subject: Re: [ale] End of Time, *nix Time<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> Bob Toxen via Ale wrote on 2026-04-24 19:43:<br>> <br>> # Download this program:<br>> wget <a href="http://verysecurelinux.com/xtime.c" target="_blank">http://verysecurelinux.com/xtime.c</a><br>> # Compile:<br>> make xtime<br>> # Run:<br>> ./xtime -q<br>> <br>> I downloaded an compiled this.<br>> <br>> Lots of warnings when running `make`, but it compiled.<br>> <br>> What am I to make of the output? I can make no sense of it.<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> $ ./xtime -q<br>> Copyright (c) Bob Toxen 2026. All rights reserved.<br>> <br>> This program will analyze your *nix for the well-known bug if the<br>> seconds since 01/01/1970 exceeds a signed 32 bit (4-byte) integer.<br>> If it outputs abnormal output for years beyond 2038 then your computer<br>> will fail at that time, about 12 years from now.<br>> <br>> Many *nix systems were fixed decades ago so that this variable became<br>> an unsigned 32-bit int, which can keep time until 2106.<br>> More recently most systems went to a signed 64-bit int.<br>> <br>> Note that most Unix and Linux distributions corrected the time<br>> problem by approximately 2014 to work until 2106 (using an unsigned<br>> 32-bit number) or well beyond if using a 64-bit number but maybe the code<br>> will fail before the largest 64-bit signed (292,271,022,989 years)<br>> or unsigned number is exceeded.<br>> <br>> <br>> If it is not fixed in your version, well, good luck.<br>> <br>> sizeof char=1, sizeof short=2, sizeof int=4, sizeof long=8, sizeof long long=8, sizeof time_t=8<br>> <br>> Current years and seconds since the epoch: 56 1777137911<br>> seconds/year:31536000, seconds/year including leap year:31557600, delta seconds:21600, delta hours:6<br>> <br>> Biggest signed 4-byte long: years inc= 0, years in the future= 11, Mon Jan 18 19:14:07 2038<br>> Biggest unsigned 4-byte long: years inc= 0, years in the future= 79, Sat Feb 6 22:28:15 2106<br>> <br>> Time: years inc= 1, years in the future= 2147437525, Wed Jun 12 15:25:11 2147483647<br>> <br>> Welcome to the Restaurant at the end of the universe. Hello, your Majesty.<br>> <br>> Biggest signed 8-byte long: years inc= 0, years in the future= 292271022988,<br>> ERROR: Invalid seconds since Epoch in localtime<br>> Error code: Value too large for defined data type<br>> <br>> Biggest unsigned 8-byte long: years inc= 0, years in the future= -56, Wed Dec 31 15:59:59 1969<br>> <br>> <br>> <br><br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Ale mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:Ale@ale.org" target="_blank">Ale@ale.org</a><br>> <a href="https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale" target="_blank">https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><br>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at<br>> <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</a><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Ale mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Ale@ale.org" target="_blank">Ale@ale.org</a><br><a href="https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale" target="_blank">https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><br>See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at<br><a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</a><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></body></html>