Y2038

acronym

programming

Stands for: the Year 2038 problem

The moment 32-bit Unix time overflows, in January 2038.

The Year 2038 problem is when a signed 32-bit time_t counter, measuring seconds since 1970, overflows and wraps to a negative number. Unlike Y2K's formatting issue, this is a hard representational limit fixed by moving to 64-bit time.

Also known as: y2038, year 2038

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