4 Jan
2000
4 Jan
'00
9:39 p.m.
norman(a)nose.cita.utoronto.ca wrote:
Warren's note reminds me of a few other Y2K bugs
I've spotted that affect
ancient UNIX:
^^^^^^^
Would you please avoid that term? It is offensive to those for whom Kernighan/
Ritchie/Thompson/Berkeley UNIX is the primary and sole computing platform.
Thank you.
- date: no way to set the date past 1999 unless in the
present year,
because two-digit input.
- at and atrun: commands are stored in the spooling directory with names
of the form YY.DDD.HHMM.xx, where xx is a unique number. This one is
trickier to fix, because the filename is already exactly 14 characters,
so there's no room for expansion. (On V10, I just rewrote the programs
to use a simple UNIX time expressed as a decimal number. A simpler solution
might be to print the year in hex.)
Both Y2K bugs have been fixed in the UNIX master source tree a couple of weeks
ago, will appear on the 4.3-QJ0b tape. For details, send a subscription request
to quasijarus-request(a)meson.jpsystems.com.
- Perhaps least consequential and most amusing: nroff
and troff store the
year in a number register. The manual says it contains `the last two
digits of the year,' and many macro packages assume that is true, but the
truth is that it contains (year-1900), the same as tm_year. So, for example,
when I ran man on New Year's Day, I was told that the manual page had been
printed on 1/1/100.
I was about to fix the various troff macro packages when I noticed that
the manual implied that I shouldn't. I asked Brian Kernighan for an opinion
(since the code and the manual were both last touched by him); he thinks the
best view is that the manual is just wrong and the macro packages should be
fixed. \n(yr is a read-write register, so `.nr yr \n(yr+1900' is probably
the easiest fix, though Brian points out that it's not always the right one
(maybe you really wanted a two-digit year). If anyone is interested I can
pass along a more detailed note from Brian.
OK, haven't hit that one yet, will look. Please do pass along B. W. Kernighan's
note.
--
Michael Sokolov Harhan Computer Operation Facility
Special Agent 615 N GOOD LATIMER EXPY #4
International Free Computing Task Force DALLAS TX 75204-5852 USA
Phone: +1-214-824-7693
ARPA INET: msokolov(a)meson.jpsystems.com
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norman(a)nose.cita.utoronto.ca wrote:
> Warren's note reminds me of a few other Y2K
bugs I've spotted that affect
> ancient UNIX:
msokolov(a)meson.jpsystems.com replied:
Would you please avoid that term? It is offensive to
those for whom Kernighan/
Ritchie/Thompson/Berkeley UNIX is the primary and sole computing platform.
Interesting. It's true that the word ancient is generally pejorative
in the context of computers. However, I think that this word may have
helped persuade SCO to offer us licenses for these versions. The header
of my license contains some wording like, "Special software license
agreement for ancient unix source code."
So I tend to use this terminology with an inside-joke kind of smirk on
my face. These kernels are more elegant and pure in design than their
descendants. If the good folks at SCO are having pleasant dreams, please
don't disturb their sleep.
Please do pass along B. W. Kernighan's note.
I second this request. Don't hold out on us. :-)