Re: Y2K

Hmm. I don't think Y2K compliance can be guranteed for any software that uses system date/time related functions and either has to be compiled or uses shared libraries.

If Y2K compliance for hypermail is desired, then there should probably be some statically-linked binary images available somewhere, which have been tested on the desired platforms.

If that is not desirable, then perhaps the installation procedures could include some way of checking the environment or the hypermail binary (after it is built) for compliance.

--Byron Darrah

PS: Sorry for not changing the subject of my previous message, which had nothing to do with Y2K :-).

From: Tom von Alten <Tom_vonAlten_at_boi.hp.com> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 12:14:15 -0600
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company

> You could test this yourself by getting a test mailbox, editing all the
> dates to assure they are in the year 2000, 2001 and run the latest
> version of hypermail available to you. Then see what happens.

> Chances are it will work as it should.

Just gave it a whirl, with a 3-msg mbox. Hacked '1998' to '2000' (for two) and '2001' (for one) in the message headers.

Piped it into a clean archive with 'testhm' and looked at the result.

Thread index shows messages starting Mon 15 Jun 1970, ending Thu 24 Sep 1970. Bummer; it not only thinks 2000 is 1970, but it thinks 2001 is also.

Took a quick look to try and find the offending code, but nothing obvious jumped out at me. Suspects include:

  line 200 of file.c adding 1900 to now->tm_year

  CENTURY defined as 1900, and BASEYEAR defined as 1970 in hypermail.h

  functions "splitshortdate" and "convtoshortdate" in date.c manipulate things in terms of 2 digit years, not a good sign. The latter is designed to handle an explicit string with the 4 digit year and chop it to 2 digits.

So, 2.0b3, at least is not ready for the millennium. I would definitely add this as a "must" for the release of 2.0, and am willing to work on it if (oh, I hate to say this...) I can find the time. :-)

_____________ Hewlett-Packard Computer Peripherals Bristol Tom von Alten mailto:Tom_vonAlten_at_boi.hp.com Received on Fri 09 Oct 1998 08:40:15 PM GMT