Dates and the year 2000

From: Roy Hann 
Subject: Re: Ingres and the year 2000

On Tue, 2 Apr 1996, Bruce E. Golightly wrote:

> I know there was some discussion on this subject a while back. I must
> confess that I did not follow the thread at the time. Now, I am involved
> in planning for this event, and have to look at potential problems and
> solutions, so I'm asking the net.
> 
> As things exist at present, the default century for Ingres is 1900. A
> select date('4/2/00') returns "2-apr-1900", which is likely to play
> havoc with any number of applications.
> 
> Does anyone know of a way to change the default century, or of plans to
> make such a change in Ingres itself?
> 
> Failing that, we have to alert our developers to start working through
> their code. Writing a "fix" is not a real big deal, but we would prefer
> to deploy resources in other areas if possible.

You have a non-problem there.  Your assumption about the way select
date('4/2/00') works is not correct.  Ingres will infer the CURRENT
century, whatever that happens to be at the time the statement is
executed, so it will continue to be right.

You may have a problem with users accustomed to entering past dates 
without the century though.  A simple fix for that may be to impose an 
input edit check for future dates.

========================================================================
Roy Hann                                   rhann@tnc.com
BKB Engineering Ltd.,                      NAIUA Member-at-Large
11211-76th Avenue,                 
Edmonton, Alberta                          http://www.tnc.com/bkb
T6G 0K2                                    Tel: (403)497-2409
Canada                                     FAX: (403)436-6055
========================================================================

From: Roy Hann 
Subject: Re: Ingres and the year 2000

On Wed, 3 Apr 1996, Bill Hoelzer wrote:

> The environment variable is named II_DATE_CENTURY_BOUNDARY
> and is only available with CA-OpenIngres 1.2.

That is great!  But where is is documented?  It's not in my Release
Summary, the on-line release notes, the System Reference Guide, or the DBA
Guide.  I _am_ running OI 1.2.  I wonder what other easter eggs are
concealed in this release? :-)

========================================================================
Roy Hann                                   rhann@tnc.com
BKB Engineering Ltd.,                      NAIUA Member-at-Large
11211-76th Avenue,                 
Edmonton, Alberta                          http://www.tnc.com/bkb
T6G 0K2                                    Tel: (403)497-2409
Canada                                     FAX: (403)436-6055
========================================================================

From: bhoelzer@sctcorp.com (Bill Hoelzer)
Subject: Re: Ingres and the year 2000

	Roy Hann  
	04/03/96 12:28 PM

>On Wed, 3 Apr 1996, Bill Hoelzer wrote:

>> The environment variable is named II_DATE_CENTURY_BOUNDARY
>> and is only available with CA-OpenIngres 1.2.

>That is great!  But where is is documented?  It's not in my Release
>Summary, the on-line release notes, the System Reference Guide, or the DBA
>Guide.  I _am_ running OI 1.2.  I wonder what other easter eggs are
>concealed in this release? :-)

I found this in the 'Release Notes for CA-OpenIngres Release 1.2/00 December 
1995' on page 5.  This was a small document that was included with my 
CA-OpenIngres 1.2 for Unix shipment.


Bill Hoelzer
SCT Manufacturing & Distribution Systems
bhoelzer@sctcorp.com
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