[Development] Help requested: 32-bit and the year 2038

Thiago Macieira thiago.macieira at intel.com
Wed Feb 1 00:00:07 CET 2023


On https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtbase/+/455491

As most of you are aware, a signed 32-bit time_t overflows in 2038. Linux has 
recently deployed "time64_t" (by certain values of "recently", as in 2015, see 
[1]). Bug report QTBUG-110429 says QMutex and QSemaphore don't work after the 
overflow, so I prepared the patch above.

It failed in the CI, in the QEMU emulation of ARMv7. The reporter however says 
that the patch works on real hardware (ARMv7 too).

I don't know if this is an emulation bug. It's likely. QEMU's emulation at 
that lower level is so riddled with bugs that every time a test fails under 
emulation, I consider it a QEMU fault until proven otherwise.

So this is a request for help: can someone who has an interest in 32-bit 
platforms take the patch forward? I am not that person and I don't even have a 
development environment for 32-bit.

If there's no action within one month, I'll abandon the patch, close the task 
as "Won't Do" and declare 32-bit Qt will not work past 2038.

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/664800/
-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
  Cloud Software Architect - Intel DCAI Cloud Engineering
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