RE: Date fields and moving from yyyymmdd to mmddyy

I agree.  I think IBM did a poor job with the date data type.  Why didn't they look at other vendor's implementation of dates, and follow the simple examples of Microsoft or Lotus, which were finished 10 years before IBM started to design date data types on the AS/400.

Other vendors dont force one to lock in the date format at compile time.  The AS/400 date data type is very flexible at the physical file level - it is simply an integer. 

But DDS forces us to declare how the date will be formatted when a record is read.  This has caused lots of confusion for nothing.

Then they dont support the most common date stored in computers: date zero.

Also, it took years to get support of the common date formats, such as slash separators yes/no and no separaters at all in all the utilities and languages.

-----Original Message-----
From: boothm@earth.Goddard.edu [mailto:boothm@earth.Goddard.edu]
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2000 8:07 PM
To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Date fields and moving from yyyymmdd to mmddyy

I am disappointed with date fields.  It was my understanding that we
should embrace them and forget 10000.01 because the new date fields would
do everything but make morning coffee.

Now I realize that instead of a couple of lines of simple and clear code
we have D-specs, Test opcode, *LOVAL,  *HIVAL, Procedures, date formats,
*MDY, *MDY/, and on and on.   What used to be a couple of simple, clear,
and accurate lines of code has become a nightmare of new code scattered
all over the place.  It looks even worse than when my cat scatters kitty
litter.

I do like the ability to add dates to dates.  I've used it twice in the
last two years alone.

_______________________
Booth Martin
boothm@earth.goddard.edu
http://www.spy.net/~booth
_______________________

John Hall <jhall@hillmgt.com>
Sent by: owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com
02/07/2000 08:15 PM
Please respond to RPG400-L

 
        To:     RPG400-L@midrange.com
        cc:
        Subject:        Re: Date fields and moving from yyyymmdd to mmddyy

I recommend setting up two variables of date type

D FIRSTDATE            S           D   DATFMT(*MDY) INZ(*LOVAL)
D LASTDATE             S           D   DATFMT(*MDY) INZ(*HIVAL)

This will work.  Also when IBM changes the date window all it will need
is a recompile.

Even better would be to put it in a service program like
%mdyDate(ANYDATE)

Chris Bipes wrote:
>
> Test the date for GT 12/31/2039 or LT 01/01/1940 after the TEST(D)
before
> the move.
>
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