DBCENTURY and 4GL
Posted in 1997
Hi family,
I have a question regarding the much-hyped DBCENTURY environment
variable. I understand that the 7.2 engine uses it to help interpret a
2-digit year. This is fine if I have a statement in dbaccess like:
insert into orders(customer, order_date)
values(12345, "01/15/03")
If DBCENTURY happens to be "C" and today's date is 11/12/1996, the above
date will be interpreted as 01/15/2003. (Assumming, of course, that I
have correctly interpreted the Guide to SQL - Reference).
However, no application I know uses dbaccess directly. It is the 4GL
app that gets the date in from a form. When the INPUT statement is
executed, the string "01/15/03" the user typed in the date field is
already stored in binary (days since 12/31/1899). I am certain that the
INPUT statement will have interpreted the "01/15/03" as the year 1903,
not 2003, since (as far as I know) 4GL knows nothing about DBCENTURY.
Is this indeed the state of affairs with 4GL? This is highly relevant,
because we are getting close to the situation where people will be
entering due dates past 12/31/1999.
Thanks.
--
-- Jake (Never yelled "CROWDED THEATER!" during a fire)
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| The expedient performance of a task with excessive concern |
| regarding its duration-to-completion engenders a virtual |
| certainty of diminished benefit therefrom. |
| -- Benjamin Franklin (but he said it in 3 words) |
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