Re: y2k bug

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Dominik Vogt <address@hidden> writes:

  dv> I have a problem with a system with a broken rtc.  Every time I
  dv> reboot, the date gets set to 1st of January, 1904.  The system was
  dv> installed with this bogus date, so many system files have this
  dv> modification date.

I don't understand how this can be so.  What operating system are you
using?

The UNIX epoch is Jan 1, 1970.  You cannot have a date earlier than
that, on a standard UNIX system.

  dv> Now, as of 16th January, 2001, (date properly set) I get this
  dv> warning whenever I build the development sources of fvwm (fvwm
  dv> subdirectory):

  dv>   make: *** Warning: File `/usr/include/asm/sigcontext.h' has 
modification time in the future (1904-01-01 01:29:19 > 2001-01-16 12:07:41)

  dv> The dates are correct, i.e. the system time is 2001-... and the
  dv> modification time of the .h file is 1904-...  Obviously the time
  dv> difference calculation is broken.  Because of this, all files get
  dv> rebuilt all the time.

The only thing I can think is that something is wrong with how make
detects your system, such that the low dates are negative numbers and
make is not handling them appropriately.  However, make always uses
unsigned values to hold the timestamps, as far as I can tell.

Can you describe your system in more detail; what OS?  What is the
underlying C type of time_t on your system, and what is it's format for
very early dates like this?  Also please check your config.h file for
the value of uintmax_t (or, if not defined, the value in your system
inttypes.h).

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
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 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist