There are a couple of errors in the documentation for fileutils-4.0
in the getdate.texi file.
1. There is a list of dates that the documentation says are the same,
but it is obvious that they are not. (It is at least not obvious
to me how "24 Sep 72" and "70-9-17" can specify the same calendar
date.)
2. The documentation states that you get a year in the current century
by adding 1900 to a number less than 100. That was true a couple
of months ago, but not now.
3. The documentation states that years less than 100 are converted by
adding 1900. It also states that they are converted to the current
century. In the enclosed patch I assume that the years are always
converted by adding 1900, but I have not verified that the code
actually always works that way. I found this comment i the ToYear
function in getdate.c which might indicate that the rules are more
complex.
/* XPG4 suggests that years 00-68 map to 2000-2068, and
years 69-99 map to 1969-1999. */
The enclosed patch makes the documentation internally consistent, but
it probably still suffers from a Y2K problem (as noted above).
Yours,
/ceder
--- fileutils-4.0/doc/getdate.texi Wed Mar 25 14:37:20 1998
+++ fileutils-4.0/doc/getdate.texi Sat Mar 18 22:11:28 2000
@@ -113,10 +113,10 @@
numerically or literally. All these strings specify the same calendar date:
@example
-1970-09-17 # ISO 8601.
-70-9-17 # This century assumed by default.
-70-09-17 # Leading zeros are ignored.
-9/17/72 # Common U.S. writing.
+1972-09-24 # ISO 8601.
+72-9-24 # The 20th century assumed by default.
+72-09-24 # Leading zeros are ignored.
+9/24/72 # Common U.S. writing.
24 September 1972
24 Sept 72 # September has a special abbreviation.
24 Sep 72 # Three-letter abbreviations always allowed.
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@
any positive number, @var{month} is a number between 01 and 12, and
@var{day} is a number between 01 and 31. A leading zero must be present
if a number is less than ten. If @var{year} is less than 100, then 1900
-is added to it to force a date in this century. The construct
+is added to it to force a date in the 20th century. The construct
@samp{@var{month}/@var{day}/@var{year}}, popular in the United States,
is accepted. Also @samp{@var{month}/@var{day}}, omitting the year.
