Linus time is running out

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From	"Charles Lindsey" <chl@clerew.man.ac.uk>
Newsgroups	comp.os.linux.embedded
Subject	Linus time is running out
Date	Mon, 24 Nov 2014 16:32:34 GMT
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As is well known, Linux time (seconds since Jan 1st 1970) will exceed the
limits of a 32-bit int early in 2038. What is the official fix to this?

AFAICS, 64-bit versions of Linux have already moved to a long int (64
bits), and you might think that 2038 is still far enough away not to start
worrying yet.

But for sure, embedded systems are being built today that may well still
be running when the time comes. Moreover, small embedded systems tend to
use the smallest ARM processor that will fill the requirements of the
application, which will ususally be a 32-bit architecture.

So what can people writing embedded systems today do to ensure that things
carry on past the deadline? It will not suffice to redefine time_t, since
there are lots of routines in libc that still expect the present
definition.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131            Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5

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Linus time is running out "Charles Lindsey" <chl@clerew.man.ac.uk> - 2014-11-24 16:32 +0000

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