Re: DATFMT

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Neil wrote:
>Workaround:
>
>Hence avoid the INZ in the Data specification unless it coincides with the
>default date format you are using.  Looks like MDY for you.  Instead move
>the value in during your *INZSR.
>
>                MoveL    '91/164'         SURCH_DATE

And what happens if a programmer wants to change the format
of SURCH_DATE?  Any MOVE and MOVEL statements will then have
to be changed as well.  Use EVAL and the format is
automatically converted for you.

I think the better question is:  Why is the program using a
date format that does not have a 4 digit year?

As another poster stated, the current design is an example of
"six of one, half a dozen of another".  But there are other
good reasons for the current design.  Early on, we thought of
having date operations in expressions.  If we did not force a
consistent format for date literals, an expression like

            D'01/02/98' + *DAYS(1)

would be ambiguous.  Would the result be '02/02/98' or
'01/03/98'?  Americans would expect one answer, Europeans the
other.

Again, why use a 2-digit year date format?  Is it because the
file you are searching in has a key in *JUL format?  No
problem - if you code an *ISO format date field in F1 of CHAIN,
the operation will still work.  For most uses of date fields
in RPG, format conversions happen automatically.  So for most
purposes, there are very few reasons for using anything other
than the *ISO default.

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com
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