Key Takeaways
TheYear 2000 problemis understood by most people these days because of the bombastic amount of media attention it received .
Most programs written in theC programming languageare relatively immune to the Y2 K trouble , but get instead from theYear 2038 problem . This problem arises because most C broadcast use a library of routines called thestandard clip library . This subroutine library ground a standard 4 - byte data formatting for the computer storage of sentence values , and also provides a number of mapping for converting , displaying and calculating time values .
Thestandard 4 - byte formatassumes that the beginning of time is January 1 , 1970 , at 12:00:00 a.m. This value is 0 . Any time / date value is express as the number of endorsement following that zero value . So the value 919642718 is 919,642,718 seconds past 12:00:00 a.m. on January 1 , 1970 , which is Sunday , February 21 , 1999 , at 16:18:38Pacific time(U.S. ) . This is a commodious format because if you deduct any two values , what you get is a phone number of bit that is the time difference between them . Then you’re able to use other use in the depository library to set how many minute of arc / 60 minutes / solar day / months / years have passed between the two times .
If you have readHow Bits and Bytes Work , you know that a signal 4 - byte integer has a maximum time value of 2,147,483,647 , and this is where the Year 2038 trouble fall from . Themaximum note value of timebefore it rolls over to a negative ( and invalid ) value is 2,147,483,647 , which render into January 19 , 2038 . On this date , any speed of light broadcast that apply the standard prison term library will begin to have problems with date calculations .
This problem is somewhat loose to determine than the Y2 K problem on mainframes , fortunately . Well - spell programs can but be recompiled with a new version of the program library that uses , for representative , 8 - byte value for the storage formatting . This is possible because the library encapsulates the whole metre bodily function with its own metre types and social occasion ( unlike most mainframe programs , which did not standardize their date formats or calculations ) . So the Year 2038 problem should not be most as operose to fix as the Y2 K problem was .
