this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What is the basis for the 2038 problem?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The most common date format used internally is "seconds since January 1st, 1970".

In early 2038, the number of seconds will reach 2^31 which is the biggest number that fits in a certain (also very common) data type. Numbers bigger than that will be interpreted as negative, so instead of January 2038 it will be in December 1901 or so.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Huh interesting. Why 2^31? I thought it was done in things like 2^32. We could have pushed this to 2106.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Signed integers. The number indeed goes to 2^32 but the second half is reserved for negative numbers.

With 8 bit numbers for simplicity:

0 means 0.
127 means 127 (last number before 2^(7)).
128 means -128.
255 means -1.