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Subject:Re: Year 2000 From:Glen Accardo <glen -at- SOFTINT -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 9 Dec 1994 11:11:51 -0600
> The reason? Create a list of dates, including dates from this century and
> the next, written in the last-two digits style; then try sorting that list
> of dates by year. Notice where the dates from the next century fall. Now,
> try doing some subtraction. (Say, 1995 from 2004, or rather: 95 from 04.)
Any software worthy of using stores Julian dates: usually a long integer
representing the number of days/seconds/whatever-time-units from some
point to the date represented. Multics (feeling nostalgic today) used the
number of seconds from the beginning of the century to represent a date/time.
People have known about this problem for ages. Julian dates also make other
problems trivial: how many days are there between December 31, 1964 and
today? Solving that problem with Gregorian dates involves nastier numeric
gynastics to account for leap years (a very nasty problem), plus a few other
snafus. To do the same with Julian dates is trivial subtractions.
The real problem is WHAT you are sorting: you need to sort dates, not strings.
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glen accardo glen -at- softint -dot- com
Software Interfaces, Inc. (713) 492-0707 x122
Houston, TX 77084
