RE: Year 2000

[John Carr <74711.77@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>[SMTP:boothm@earth.goddard.edu] wrote:
>> One really great feature though, is the   test(d)   opcode.  Testing dates
>> has never been easier.   Of course that opcode is available for any
>> typical date field, not just Ldate fields.  It sure makes it fun & easy to
>> delete whole subroutines and called programs that we've used to validate
>> dates in the past.

>Booth,

>I agree 100%.   But my point was that if a numeric field that is used as a 
>date value, contains a zero, then you can't simply "port" that to date 
>fields unless you change your logic. True the TEST(D) operation can check 
>the field for a valid date value, but if it is zero, you'd have to alter 
>the rest of the application system's logic. That is that value (0) cannot 
>be put into a date field.
>Bob Cozzi
>Bob@rpgdev.net
>http://www.rpgdev.net

Bob 
That is the point that I tried to make a couple of posts ago.    We need to
realize that whether its
9 numeric, 8 numeric, or "L" (Date) data types,    we have "Special Reserved"
values imbedded
in our code.  Date 00/00/00 and 99/99/99 etc.     These values do not mean
anything in themselves.
For example what does an Order Date or Effectivity date of 00/00/00 mean?    
These "Special Values" only mean "what ever the programmer hard coded in the
Program Logic"
What does 00/00/00  mean to a user using Query?    

It seems like we demanded IBM to make our data base more "ANSI" standard (More
SQL complient).
and demanded Date Data types.   But when we got them we seem to say " I didn't
know they would
act like Dates when I asked you to implement Date types"

I agree with your earlier post about when to use which(9 numeric, 8 numeric,
etc).

John Carr   CDP
EdgeTech

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