Re: Millennial Fun with Oracle Dates

saustin_deja_at_my-deja.com wrote in message <84gaq1$d9$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Hello Friends,
>
>As you may know there are those of us who believe that 1 Jan 2001 is
>the start of the new millenium, not 1 Jan 2000, because in the Western
>calendar there's no year zero. So we thought we'd find out what
>Oracle's take on it is, since they have a calendar that goes back past
>4000 B.C.
>
>Who would have guessed how much fun this would be:
>
>First let's see how many days there are between 31 Dec 1 B.C. and
>1 Jan 1 A.D. If you believe in no year zero, this should be one day.
>
>select to_date('01-01-0001 AD','MM-DD-YYYY AD')-to_date('12-31-0001
>BC','MM-DD-YYYY BC') from dual;
>
>TO_DATE('01-01-0001AD','MM-DD-YYYYAD')-TO_DATE('12-31-0001BC','MM-DD-
>YYYYBC')
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----
>
> 367
>
>Uhh, let me see - not only is there a year zero, it was also a leap
>year (I guess since it divides by both 4 and 400), and by the way it
>had one extra day as well. Hope it fell on a long weekend!

[Quoted] [Quoted] No it didn't. It only had 366 days. If it take sone day to go from dec 31 [Quoted] [Quoted] to jan 1, then you have 366 days in the leap the 1 day. equals 367 days. so this is correct.

>OK, maybe there is a year zero. Let's see how many days there are
>between 31 Dec 1 B.C. and 1 Jan in the year 0:
>
>select to_date('01-01-0000 AD','MM-DD-YYYY AD')-to_date('12-31-0001
>BC','MM-DD-YYYY BC') from dual;
>
>ERROR at line 1:
>ORA-01841: (full) year must be between -4713 and +9999, and not be 0
>
>Well I guess you *can* have your cake and eat it too. How about this:
>what happens when I move forward one day from 31 Dec 1 B.C.
>
>select to_char(to_date('12-31-0001 BC','MM-DD-YYYY BC')+1,'MM-DD-YYYY
>HH24:MI:SS') from dual ;
>
>TO_CHAR(TO_DATE('12
>-------------------
>00-00-0000 00:00:00
>
>Now there's a timestamp for ya! Not only is there a year zero, there's
>also a month zero and a day zero (maybe that's where the 367th day came [Quoted] [Quoted] [Quoted]
>from...) But tell me, is the year zero B.C. or A.D.?
>

Funny, I get 01-1-0000 so there is no month 0 or day 0, but there is a year 0

>select to_char(to_date('12-31-0001 BC','MM-DD-YYYY BC')+1,'MM-DD-YYYY
>BC HH24:MI:SS') from dual ;
>
>TO_CHAR(TO_DATE('12-31
>----------------------
>00-00-0000 00 00:00:00
>
>select to_char(to_date('12-31-0001 BC','MM-DD-YYYY BC')+1,'MM-DD-YYYY
>AD HH24:MI:SS') from dual ;
>
>TO_CHAR(TO_DATE('12-31
>----------------------
>00-00-0000 00 00:00:00
>
>Neither, by golly, it's the year zero dammit!!
>

[Quoted] NO , if you check it is AD
>How many days will it take me to get from 31 Dec 1 B.C. until A.D. time?
>
>select to_char(to_date('12-31-0001 BC','MM-DD-YYYY BC')+365,'MM-DD-YYYY
>HH24:MI:SS') from dual ;
>
>TO_CHAR(TO_DATE('12
>-------------------
>00-00-0000 00:00:00
> [Quoted]
>Not enough...
>
>select to_char(to_date('12-31-0001 BC','MM-DD-YYYY BC')+366,'MM-DD-YYYY
>HH24:MI:SS') from dual ;
>
>TO_CHAR(TO_DATE('12
>-------------------
>00-00-0000 00:00:00
>
>Still not enough!!
>
>select to_char(to_date('12-31-0001 BC','MM-DD-YYYY BC')+367,'MM-DD-YYYY
>HH24:MI:SS') from dual ;
>
>TO_CHAR(TO_DATE('12
>-------------------
>01-01-0001 00:00:00
>
>OK now I'm cool, after a long 367 days I'm finally in A.D. time.

[Quoted] yes, 367 days. 366 days in year 0 and 1 day to go to year 1. however you are already in AD time.

>But now, when does the new millenium start? 2 Jan 2000?
>
>Any historians out there using Oracle to compute durations between B.C. [Quoted]
>and A.D. might want to go check their arithmetic once more...
>
>Cheers
>Stuart "much too much time on my hands" Austin
>
>

[Quoted] I think that maybe a little too much alcohol may have been consumed when you [Quoted] were trying to work this out.

>
>
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
Received on Tue Jan 04 2000 - 15:56:41 CET