Re: use of DBCENTURY, How then?

Dear All, I have seen discussions about the usefulness of this variable. But please someone tells me how to set it up in the log in profile. Thanks.. Joseph -----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Leffler <jleffler@informix.com> To: Infodata <infodata@batelco.com.bh> Cc: informix-list@iiug.org <informix-list@iiug.org> Date: Tuesday, July 14, 1998 4:35 PM Subject: Re: use of DBCENTURY >On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Infodata wrote: >> I would appreciate some insight into the use of DBCENTURY variable. > >RTM? > >> Do both the tool and the server require to support DBCENTURY, to use its >> features, or is it sufficient for the server to only have this capability? > >It depends on how much you like nasty surprises. > >* If you don't mind them, then you can use a mixed-capability combination. >* If you don't like them, then you should use a matched set of tools and > engines. They should either both be aware of DBCENTURY or, possibly, > both unware of it. It is recommended that you upgrade to DBCENTURY-aware > software. If you don't, make sure you always display all 4 digits of the > year in every date that is displayed. If you don't (won't) do that, > expect problems. > >The problems occur when a date is translated from a string into a DATE >value and the string only has 2-digits for the year. If your application >doesn't handle DBCENTURY, it will always add 1900 when it does the >conversion; if the database handles DBCENTURY, it might add 1800, 1900, >2000 or even 2100, depending on DBCENTURY and the current date. Or the >reverse could be true if the database is not aware of DBCENTURY but the >application is. Consequently, you might get different answers when the >engine does the conversion and when the tool does the conversion. > >If the tool is I4GL, most of the date conversions will be done in the >front-end code and it would be silly not to upgrade to a DBCENTURY-aware >version of the software, unless you are sure that all your dates are >displayed with 4 digits for the year and your users are used to typing all >4 digits when they enter the year -- and that is improbable! They will >probably just type 2 digits for the year and it automatically gets >converted from 98 to 1998; the snag is, when they type 00, it will be >automatically converted to 1900 once the century rolls over. The >documentation says that 1900 is added, and it means 1900 is added. > >> What are the values that can be assigned to this environment variable? > >According to TFM: C, P, F, R > >> I understand that it can be used to change the default century to the >> century closest, before or after the current date. But what are the >> respective settings for these? > >C, P, F > >Yours, >Jonathan Leffler (jleffler@informix.com) #include <witticism.h> >Guardian of DBD::Informix -- see http://www.perl.com/CPAN > >