Subject: bug#65423: README-install contains invalid/outdated information about 32 bit time_t compared to NEWS in 9.3

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 14:25:33 -0500

On 8/21/23 05:51, Osipov, Michael (IN IT IN) via GNU coreutils Bug 
Reports wrote:
> in 9.3 year 2038 support with 64 bit time_t was made required [1], here 
> on HP-UX this is a bit problematic, but that's not the actual problem. 
> The diff between 9.2 and 9.3 [2] says how this can be fixed on platforms 
> supporting both 32 and 64 bit, on HP-UX it'd be simply '+DD64', and how 
> to avoid with "ac_year2038_required=no", but README-install on master 
> [3] still contains '--disable-year2038' which obviously does not work. 
> It simply needs to be updated to the content of [2].

Sorry, I don't understand. Why does --disable-year2038 not work on HP-UX 
for bleeding-edge coreutils on Savannah?

It sounds like you're suggesting that we revert the attached patch, but 
I don't see how that would be correct as bleeding-edge 
coreutils/configure no longer looks at ac_year2038_required.

> I cannot compile everything in 64 bit mode since no one has written our old applications with portability in mind. It needs to remain 32 bit for now. 

I suggest compiling coreutils in 64-bit mode now. You can keep compiling 
your other applications in 32-bit mode. Even though HP-UX's end of life 
is the end of 2025, it's possible you'll run across a stray HP-UX file 
today with timestamp after 2038, and basic coreutils apps like 'ls' 
should work with such files.

From ba128e628cfa0dd111cf235d965200d1cdf77f52 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?P=C3=A1draig=20Brady?= <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2023 12:57:56 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] doc: adjust build instructions for disabling year 2038
 support

* README-install: Adjust the instructions as per recent gnulib updates.
---
 README-install | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/README-install b/README-install
index 6ab5b4f8c..bbc034951 100644
--- a/README-install
+++ b/README-install
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ Although 32-bit builds fail if that forces time_t to be 32 bits, this
 can be fixed by using 64-bit builds.  For example, on AIX where GCC
 defaults to 32 bits, one can use "./configure CC='gcc -maix64' AR='ar
 -X64'"; similarly, on Solaris one can configure with CC='gcc -m64'.
-If all else fails one can configure with ac_year2038_required=no;
+If all else fails one can configure with --disable-year2038;
 however, this will mishandle timestamps after 2038, and please file
 bug reports for any such situations.
 
-- 
2.41.0