Seconded. Regards, Alastair.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas J Hawley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "RBG7-L Mailing List" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 12:12 AM Subject: [RBG7-L] - Variable Precision Dates ? > I've been following the discussion about "yearless" dates with interest. > I have a 7,000 name alumni database that goes back to the 1870's and among > the things we track are birth and death dates. In many cases, all we know > is that a date falls in a given month and year (no day), or sometimes only > a given year (no day or month) and the issue is how to represent these > "variable precision dates" using the R:Base date data type. While the > "yearless" date can be accomplished by using an arbitrary year like 1000, > there is no similar mechanism for "dayless" or "monthless" dates. > > Razzak, how about a new VPDATE data type that generally acts like DATE, > but permits "00" for the day and month, and "0000" for the year? > > This would have limited date arithmetic capability, but would allow the > entry of "variable precision dates" using a data type that predefines the > usual calendar parameters (months 1-12, days 1-31, 31 Feb invalid, etc.) > so all that doesn't have to be coded by hand. > > Tom Hawley > New York > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
