Storing dates - revisted...

[bvining@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Chuck,

I think you will find that different people have quite different ideas
on how date output should appear (2-digit vs 4-digit or other similarly
unambiguous format).  For output intended for a human being to process
I believe that a 2-digit representation of the year is sufficient for
99% of the displays/reports found.  2-digit dates preserve space on the
interface and are generally sufficient for a user to determine the
correct century (within the context of the report or display).  Where
it is considered critical that the user know unambiguously the century
of interest, then 4-digit years should be used.  An example of this
would be where DSPJOB shows the current job date as 4-digits (the year
may make a big difference to a developer debugging a problem) but
most OS/400 displays continue to use 2-digits (for instance, the date
a spooled file was created on WRKSPLF).  Note though that this is only
true because the intended user is a human being.

If the intended user is another program then the date should always be
output in an unambiguous format.  The API List Spooled Files (QUSLSPL)
for example uses a CYYMMDD format for date created/opened.

Bruce Vining

>...
>Which brings up ANOTHER point - what are people doing about the actual
>"output" ?
>
>Including the WHOLE date (i.e. 09/23/1998) or sticking with the "norm"
>(09/23/98) ?
>...
>Chuck
>

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