Re: Forms45/Year 2000

keurbg_at_aol.com (KEURBG) wrote:

>Has anyone had experience in how to deal with the date fields for the year
>2000
>We currently have 4.5 applications which use the Oracle date format ie
>DD-MON-YY. The year 2000 will require that the year field be 4 positions
>instead
>of 2. Any suggestions on how we should proceed?
 

>Thanks, Bill

We use the RRRR mask -- e.g. MM/DD/RRRR.

Many have suggested using the RR format mask, and, for many applications this is just fine. For some applications, though, it may be preferable to use the RRRR format.

Why? The RR format makes an *assumption* concerning the century. In some instances, the assumption might be "incorrect". For example, if the user wanted to enter a date with the year "1901", the RR format will not work. The user enters an "01" for the year, and, the RR rule makes the century "20"; thus, "2001". Since the RR mask does not provide a means of specifying/overriding the century, the user is stuck.

For this reason, we use RRRR for year -- e.g. MM/DD/RRRR. If the user enters only two characters for the year (e.g. "01"), the mask will provide the century value ("20"--> "2001") according to the RR rule. If the RR assumption is not appropriate for the particular case, the user can update the value with the appropriate century. Or, the user can simply type the date, specifying all 4 characters for the year when they initially enter the date.

This provides the best of both worlds. The user still only has to type two characters for the year, and, for the times the RR assumption is not appropriate, they are not denied the ability to type the date they intended -- e.g. 1/1/1901. They may have been a little reluctant about the display of four digits for the year, at first; but, once they realized they did not *have* to always specify all four digits, and, that this method allowed them to specify both "1901" and "2001", they were happy and understood.

Take care,

Larry G. Elkins
elkinsl_at_flash.net Received on Fri Sep 13 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST