Re: Allow *ZERO in a date (and timestamp) field? IBM?

["R. Bruce Hoffman, Jr." <rbruceh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "William A.(Tony) Corbett" <corbett@ASRESOURCES.COM>
To: "MIDRANGE-L@midrange. com" <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 9:05 AM
Subject: Allow *ZERO in a date (and timestamp) field? IBM?


> If the "date field restrictions" could be eased up to allow only valid
dates
> (as it is now) OR zero in a date field, this would help us a lot.
>
> I am currently having to using a packed field to store dates on the db,
> primarily due to this restriction.  Oftentimes, I need to allow a zero in
a
> date field, and current restrictions will not allow this.


while I understand the wish, it is not likely to ever be changed. And I
think "help us" is a key mentality here... it sure won't help the developers
that follow us.

One should never use a value to represent a "no value" condition and that's
what you are doing. A null value is what is used to represent that
condition. Since nulls are viable in date fields, you would/should convert
your dates and null those dates that are zero.

And, yes, application code would all have to change then too.

===========================================================
R. Bruce Hoffman, Jr.
 -- IBM Certified Specialist - iSeries Administrator
 -- IBM Certified Specialist - RPG IV Developer

"There is a crack in everything,
  that's how the light gets in.
    - Leonard Cohen