Re: Date Format prior to 1940

[qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

rob wrote:

> I went to a panel on Y2K preparation presented by one company that went 
> through it and how they changed all their dates to numeric packed CYMD. 
> They looked exhausted.  So, I asked them "Are you going to go through this 
> again when the users all want the dates in a format that they can query?"

Heh. Probably not a popular question with them.

Waaay back, I wrote a Roman-numeral calculator in Fortran as an 
exercise in college. Just because it can be done is not a good 
enough reason to do it in production code.

You're definitely on target that a true date field is the way to go. 
It's not like they haven't been around for a while. Oldest RPG 
manual I have nowadays is V4R3 February 1998 and four-digit years 
are shown without change-marks. (External and internal 
representations differ, of course.) Similarly, my V4R2 DDS manual 
has the Date data type without change-marks; the dates are not 
clearly marked -- V4R2 was obviously earlier.

So even if someone was using obsolete manuals for whatever reason, 
there's a good chance that the info is available.

Tom Liotta