Problem: Many customers are concerned that their computer applications may not be able to handle the change over from 1999 to year 2000 correctly. Many older computer systems stored dates in two digit numbers. This will result in confusion if the programmer does not address this before the year 2000, because it will not be clear whether 00 means the year 1900 or the year 2000. Solution: /*******************************************************************************/ Note: The information in this article applies to all InterBase versions. /********************************************************************************/ InterBase is year 2000 compliant because of the way we store dates. We store the full 32 bit representation of the year. The earliest possible year stored in InterBase is 1862. The 32bit representation of the year portion of the date makes it possible to store up to two billion possible years. We also store a 32 bit represesentation of seconds in the date column. As a result, InterBase date fields will not be adversely affected by the turn of the century. *** If a customer wants to store dates in two digit format, not using InterBase's date field, strongly discourage them from doing so. If they really want to have two digit representation of dates, remind them to build logic into their code to make 00 greater than 99.
Last Modified: 18-OCT-00