From 7622e945aaa8e2cc4cb95629d321d12233333f86 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neale Pickett Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2023 16:22:35 -0600 Subject: [PATCH] Add WIP blog post on time_t --- content/blog/2023-03-09-time_t/index.md | 127 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 127 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/blog/2023-03-09-time_t/index.md diff --git a/content/blog/2023-03-09-time_t/index.md b/content/blog/2023-03-09-time_t/index.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4dedf9d --- /dev/null +++ b/content/blog/2023-03-09-time_t/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,127 @@ +--- +title: The Year 2038 problem +date: 2023-03-09 +published: false +--- + +In the year 2038, +old Unix code is going to run out of bits to store time. +This is going to be a really big problem, +and I'm hoping I can surf it into retirement. + +The Y2K Bug +=========== + +Back in the 1990s there was this increasing panic about the +"Y2K problem". +These days it seems to be remembered as sort of a joke, +like "ha ha remember how freaked out they tried to make us? +And it wound up being a whole lot of nothing." +A bunch of people, +including me, +worked their assses off to make sure nothing bad happened. + +The problem was that a lot of systems written in the 1960s to the 1980s +stored the year as a 2-digit number. +You got the full year by adding 1900 to that stored number. +This made total sense, +because most people were used to writing the year as, +like, "63" or "89". +I was taught in school to use "mm/dd/yy" format on anything needing a date. + +So when it became increasingly clear that "add 1900" wasn't going to work +when the year became "00", +a whole lot of people had to go dig through a whole lot of old programs, +and patch them in various ways to deal with 2000 and beyond. + +Here are a few of the main techniques I saw, +in order from "patching it up with chewing gum" to +"fix that will work forever": + +* If the number is 60-99, add 1900. Otherwise add 2000. + This works only if you're storing dates after 1960, + and is going to stop working in 2060. + I guess at this point everyone involved in the 1999 fix + will probably be dead, so it'll be someone else's problem. +* Alter things to store years with more than two numbers. + So the year 2000 is stored as 100 (1900 + 100 = 2000). + It's weird when you look at the raw data, + but it might mean you can keep using the rest of the program, + which means you're able to get the fix in quickly. +* Store time as a `time_t`, which counts the number of seconds + since January 1, 1970 in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). + I'll talk about the problem with this below. +* Store the year as a 4-digit number, + which will keep working for another 8000 years, + and also allows you to store dates going back to the beginning + of most governments on Earth. + +When January 1, 2000 rolled around, +there were still a couple of problems. +I remember one payroll company was dating checks wrong, +I think an insurance company had some sort of issue they patched pretty quickly, +but for the most part, +everything kept running along smoothly, +and all the people like me who had stayed up all night in the data center +waiting for some big emergency +breathed a big sigh of relief and went to bed. + + +The Year 2038 Problem +===================== + +That third example of a fix uses the Unix `time_t`, +which is a 32-bit signed integer. + +Bits? +----- + +Bits are talked about a lot with computers, +but hardly ever explained. +Here's a really brief introduction +based on my years of experience teaching binary to high school students. + +Let's start by talking about decimal, though. + +| # of digits | how many muffins you can count | number of different values | +| ---- | ---- | ---- | +| 1 | 0 - 9 | 10 | +| 2 | 0 - 99 | 100 | +| 3 | 0 - 999 | 1000 | +| 4 | 0 - 9999 | 10000 | + +Get it? +Now let's talk about binary: + +| # of bits | how many muffins you can count | number of different values | +| ---- | ---- | +| 1 | 0 - 1 | 2 | +| 2 | 0 - 3 | 4 | +| 3 | 0 - 7 | 8 | +| 4 | 0 - 15 | 16 | +| 5 | 0 - 31 | 32 | +| 6 | 0 - 63 | 64 | +| 7 | 0 - 127 | 128 | +| 8 | 0 - 255 | 256 | + +See the pattern? +Every time you add a bit, +you get twice as many values. +Let's extend that table: + +| # of bits | how many muffins you can count | number of different values | +| ---- | ---- | +| 1 | 0 - 1 | 2 | +| 2 | 0 - 3 | 4 | +| 3 | 0 - 7 | 8 | +| 4 | 0 - 15 | 16 | +| 5 | 0 - 31 | 32 | +| 6 | 0 - 63 | 64 | +| 7 | 0 - 127 | 128 | +| 8 | 0 - 255 | 256 | +| ⋮ | ⋮ | ⋮ | ⋮ | +| 30 | 0 - 1073741823 | 1073741824 | +| 31 | 0 - 2147483647 | 2147483648 | +| 32 | 0 - 4294967297 | 4294967296 | + +