Re: AW: Why RPG IV Sucks

[Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

HauserSSS wrote:
> 
> Hi Barbara,
> 
> What I never understood is:
> 
> Why a date that is stored as 4Byte integer must be converted into a readable
> representation.

Birgitta, I never really understood it either.  (It's not RPG's
decision.  RPG doesn't control how the dates appear in the I/O buffers,
and the system routines RPG uses for date calculations require formatted
dates).  Me personally, I always thought that it shouldn't need to be
converted to a readable representation until it had to be read by a
human (for example, display or printer file) or converted to character.

> 
> SQL on the other hand does not care about the date format.
> Sure, it is used to make a date readable, but you don't get an error,
> if the date is out of range.
> It is even possible to insert records and calulation with dates,
> if they are out of range.
> 

If you insert a record with an out-of-range date, you get a data mapping
error when you try to access the record...