[pups] Y2K problem in ftpd?

Dave Horsfall dave at fgh.geac.com.au
Mon Feb 5 23:09:49 AEST 2001


On Mon, 5 Feb 2001, Martijn van Buul wrote:

> ncftp /usr/home/martijnb> quote mdtm foobar.c
> 191010115144152
>
> (mdtm should return the datestamp, in the form yyyymmddhhmm. ftpd
> thinks that it is 19101, and chops off the last digit of the filedate..)

Yep, that's a sure sign, which (cough, cough) I have personally seen on
some (cough, cough) Y2K-compliant software supported by (cough, cough)
A Large Software Company.  No, I wasn't personally responsible for that
code :-)

> I'll see if I can figure out a quick patch :)

Beware of the Y2K.1 bug :-(

Synopsis:

In order to overcome the Y2K bug, we implement a quick fix, because we
are too lazy to do it properly:

IF last two digits == '00' THEN make first two digits == '20'.
// Because we're gonna retire this stuff after 2000.

So what happens in 2001?  Well, you get 1901, 19101, etc.  Sigh...  Isn't
that fix what got us into trouble in the first place?

Disclaimer: None of Geac software exhibited the Y2K.1 bug, since we tested
it thoroughly, for years 2000, 2001, etc: I make no comment on Y2K.

-- 
Dave Horsfall CL VK2KFU  dave at geac.com.au  Ph: +61 2 9978-7493  Fx: * 9978-7490
Geac Computers P/L (ERP Division) 2/57 Christie St, St Leonards 2065, Australia


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