Re: plsql / function / convert to date

On 27 Feb 2003, oliver_at_demus-online.de wrote:

> yepp, I know, I donīt understand the desicion of the development. But
> we have that now, and I have to find for that workarounds. I tried to
> get a good answer, while they do it, but...

If the dates really represent days only, and time is not important, then whether its a date, or what looks to be a julian number shouldn't matter. What should matter is that you would know what is the beginning of the julian calculation.

If time is irrelevant, there are nice arguments for not storing date fields. To tell you the truth, I wish we could seperate out clock time and calendar in the datatypes. 02/01/2002 really is three attributes

1. month
2. day
3. year

Doing distribution queries across months is straight SQL with the second format while the concatenated, 02/01/2002 format combined with a boatload of database specific date formulas, you can get the same answer.

-- 
Galen deForest Boyer
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.