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Re: How to check whether my Oracle database has Y2K problem?

From: Yuri McPhedran <esiyuri_at_my-dejanews.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 10:03:34 GMT
Message-ID: <7a0u9j$p0b$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>


In article <01be55e7$2465a4c0$a504fa80_at_mndnet>,   "Oracleguru, Suresh Bhat" <oracleguru_at_mailcity.com> wrote:

> Rules for TO_DATE function:
>
> DO NOT USE yy format. Avoid rrrr format. There is NO yyrr or rryy
> format.
>
> For 4 BYTE OR 4 DIGIT YEAR, use format yyyy, even though format rrrr
> works. Format rrrr did not work in Release 7.1.

Suresh,

I agree with most of what you wrote, but strongly disagree with your advice not to use the 'RRRR' date format when converting a string to a date.

For reasons that I have explained before in this newsgroup, as long as you are running a version of Oracle that supports it, the 'RRRR' format is by far the safest to use.

There may be some argument for using 'YYYY' for new systems, since it's greater strictness will cause sloppy coding that has assumed a default 'YY' date format to fail. This is probably not what you would want to happen on an existing system though!

My previous explanation can be read using dejanews at:

http://www.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=434362851

I am very open to people having a different opinion, and would be glad to hear reasons as to why you warn against using the 'RRRR' format. You don't seem to give any in your previous posting, other than it not being available in older versions of Oracle.

Regards
Yuri McPhedran

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own Received on Fri Feb 12 1999 - 04:03:34 CST

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