Clarification
October's
Adager DATE TestDrive
For the October Test Drive, I created a test database and populated it with
five years' worth of dates in a variety of formats. Part of my plan was to
see how Adager handled dates intended to be from the years 2000 and 2001
but only having two digits describing the year (for example, I intended the
ascii string 000229 to represent 02/29/2000). At this point I had a serious
case of brain lock and forgot that when I replied NO to using a cutoff
value, Adager would assume 000229 was 02/29/1900 and not 02/29/2000! I then
compounded the goof by concluding that Adager's flagging of 000229 as
invalid was justified because 2000 is not a leap year. Bzzzzzzz.
The year 2000 is a leap year, but the year 1900 is not (See net.digest this
month for information on when a year is a leap year). Adager works just
fine. When I went back and revisited my tests, this time using a cutoff
value, Adager correctly accepted 000229 as valid. It was the tester, in a
hurry trying to wrap things up before going on vacation, who was in error.
My apologies to the folks in Sun Valley, Idaho.
-- John Burke
Copyright 1996, The 3000 NewsWire. All rights reserved.