Re: [MacPerl] Y2K complience

[Matthias Ulrich Neeracher <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>]

[*Cough* *cough* please keep your contributions in this thread relevant to
MacPerl (as Chris did).]

pudge@pobox.com (Chris Nandor) writes:
>At 13.37 6/18/97, David T. McWherter wrote:
>>Hope that helped...And to confuse the issue even more, I believe
>>that times are all handled in 64-bit quantities now by the MacOS,

You are right, in a way (Pedantically, one should say that the file system and
most other places in the OS I'm familiar with store 32 bit dates and the clock
gives 32 bit seconds, which simply can be zero-extended for the 64 bit
routines. Apparently Apple expects that all existing Macs will cease to be used
or will get a system upgrade before 2038).

>#!perl
>$\=$/;
>sub doTime {print scalar localtime(shift)}
>doTime((2**32) - 10);
>doTime(2**32);
>doTime(2**64);
>__END__
>Mon Feb  6 06:28:06 2040
>Mon Feb  6 06:28:15 2040
>Mon Feb  6 06:28:15 2040

You are right, too :-) MacOS supports both 32 bit and 64 bit date routines.
Traditionally, I've used the 32 bit routines, as this is all that a standard C
library can support. Given that Perl numbers can be doubles, though, there is
no reason why I shouldn't use the 64 bit routines in the future (So you can
keep track of the birthday of your pet Velociraptor *and* the latest estimates
for the year in which the US federal budget will be balanced).

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher   <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>   http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri
   "Maybe five billion years had passed since the archive was lost to
    the nets"  -- Vernor Vinge _A Fire Upon the Deep_

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