10 digit date?

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mipa jim

Mar 17th 2006, 5:47 pm

I have a database that has a ten digit date (int) field
number looks like this:
1142429652

Best I can figure it translates to the number of seconds since the Magna Carta or the Treaty of Versailles or maybe since Columbus supposedly found America.

Can anyone translate this one for me?

Tks.

lorien1973

Mar 17th 2006, 5:52 pm

isnt that the numerical number down to the second since 1970? In c you have you cdate(1142429652); to get the actual date it represents. I don't know how to convert it otherwise

mipa jim

Mar 17th 2006, 5:57 pm

ok, maybe.... so what so historic happened in 1970?

lorien1973

Mar 17th 2006, 5:59 pm

I dunno. I think its just the standard that it was set to.

seems right too:

1 142 429 652 seconds = 36.2021844 years

1970 + 36.2021844 = 2006.2021844

Sholva

Mar 21st 2006, 11:49 pm

ok, maybe.... so what so historic happened in 1970?

Some UNIX programmer(s) decided Jan 1, 00:00:00 UTC 1970 would make a nice date for the UNIX epoch. Don't ask me why... as I think UNIX wasn't around until 1972? I guess they liked even dates.

It runs out sometime in 2038 if they are still using POSIX time with a signed 32 bit integer. I suspect by then people won't be silly enough to make such a big deal of it... like with Y2K.