RE: Date field's and their file space usage.

["Joe Lee" <LeeJD@xxxxxx>]

4713 BCE? why not 4712 or 4714? For that matter why October 14, 1582? At
least the Unix date time values with a base of January 1, 1970 makes
some sense, but who came up with these other base dates, and why?

Joe Lee

>>> cozzi@xxxxxxxxx 01/11/2005 12:18:06 >>>
Yes, I know/knew about the scaliger number but didn't want to use big
words.
<vbg>

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
On Behalf Of Bruce Vining
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 1:01 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: RE: Date field's and their file space usage.





> Date fields are all stored internally as a 4-byte integer. The value
stored
> is the number of days since January 1, 0001 or October 14, 1582, I'm
not
> sure which it is.

A minor point but date fields are actually stored using Scaliger
numbers
which have a base of January 1 4713 BCE.

October 14 1582 is the base date for Lilian numbers which are used by
the
ILE CEE Date APIs.