The Year-2038 Bug

Thursday, = 17 August=20 2000 00:00 Paul Sheer = Articles = =20 - General =

The year-2038 bug is similar to the Y2K bug in that it involves = a=20 time-wrap problem not handled by programmers. In the case of Y2K, = many=20 older machines did not store the century digits of dates, hence = the year=20 2000 and the year 1900 would appear the same.

Of = course we=20 now know that the prevalence of computers that would fail because = of this=20 error was greatly exaggerated by the media. Computer scientists = were=20 generally aware that most machines would continue operating as = usual=20 through the century turnover, with the worst result being an = incorrect=20 date. This prediction withstood through to the new millennium. = Affected=20 systems were tested and corrected in time, although the correction = and=20 verification of those systems was monumentally=20 expensive.

There are however several other problems = with date=20 handling on machines in the world today. Some are less prevalent = than=20 others, but it is true that almost all computers suffer from one = critical=20 limitation: Most programs work out their dates from a perpetual = second=20 counter - 86400 seconds per day counting from Jan 1 1970. A recent = milestone was Sep 9 2001, where this value wrapped from = 999'999'999=20 seconds to 1'000'000'000 seconds. Very few programs anywhere store = time as=20 a 9 digit number, and therefore this was not a=20 problem.

Modern computers use a standard 4 byte = integer for=20 this second count. This is 31 bits, storing a maximum value of=20 2³¹. The remaining bit is the sign. This means that = when the=20 second count reaches 2147483647, it will wrap to=20 -2147483648.

The precise date of this occurrence is = Tue Jan=20 19 03:14:07 2038. At this time, a machine prone to this bug will = show the=20 time Fri Dec 13 20:45:52 1901, hence it is possible that the media = will=20 call this The Friday 13th Bug.

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Last Updated on = Saturday, 15 May=20 2010 23:23

The Year-2038 Bug

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