From: egil@kvaleberg.no (Egil Kvaleberg)

There is in fact a similar problem elsewhere.

Since my version of cnews seems to be somewhat differently organized
anyway, I've enclosed a complete patch for these two cases. 

Note also that this utterly evident method of handling 2 digit years
is rumored to be covered by some US patent - then again, since the
outcome is a number offset 1900 and not a 4 digit year - it may be not. 

Regretfully, this senseless patent system seems to be paving its way to
Europe to. Perhaps we can agree upon a new years resolution of working to
try to get rid of this menace in form of the institution of software
patents. A treat to any self respecting programmer that has not lost the
ability to think for himself, and still has some pride left. 

Egil

------------- snip ---------------------------
*** libc/getabsdate.c.orig	Tue Dec 10 23:23:05 1991
--- libc/getabsdate.c	Sat Jan  1 16:54:46 2000
***************
*** 116,121 ****
  		case YEAR:
  			tm->tm_year = bigval;
  			/* convert 4-digit year to 1900 origin */
! 			if (tm->tm_year >= 1900)
  				tm->tm_year -= 1900;
  			break;
--- 116,126 ----
  		case YEAR:
  			tm->tm_year = bigval;
+ 
+ 			/* convert 2-digit year 20xx to 1900 origin */
+ 			if (tm->tm_year < 70) /* y2k */
+ 				tm->tm_year += 100;
+ 
  			/* convert 4-digit year to 1900 origin */
! 			else if (tm->tm_year >= 1900)
  				tm->tm_year -= 1900;
  			break;
*** libc/getindate.c.orig	Tue Dec 10 23:24:29 1991
--- libc/getindate.c	Sat Jan  1 17:04:15 2000
***************
*** 150,156 ****
  
  	tm->tm_year = atoi(line);
! 	if (tm->tm_year <= 0)
  		return -1;		/* year is non-positive or missing */
! 	if (tm->tm_year >= 1900)	/* convert year to 1900 origin, */
  		tm->tm_year -= 1900;	/* but 2-digit years need no work */
  	SKIPOVER(line);			/* skip year */
--- 150,159 ----
  
  	tm->tm_year = atoi(line);
! 	if (tm->tm_year < 0 || !isdigit(*line))
  		return -1;              /* year is non-positive or missing */
! 
! 	if (tm->tm_year < 70)           /* year is 2000 origin? */
! 		tm->tm_year += 100;     /* make 1900 origin y2k */
! 	else if (tm->tm_year >= 1900)   /* convert year to 1900 origin, */
  		tm->tm_year -= 1900;    /* but 2-digit years need no work */
  	SKIPOVER(line);                 /* skip year */

----------------------------------------------

-- 
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