Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 09:56:09 +0000
Reply-To: R.A.Reese@UCC.HULL.AC.UK
Sender: "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From: "R. Allan Reese" <R.A.Reese@UCC.HULL.AC.UK>
Subject: Year 2000: (was Date Format as YYMMDD?)
In-Reply-To: <E0vkLoE-0002IB-00@adelphi.ucc.hull.ac.uk>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
The year 2000 problem (aka Virginia Bottomley - that's a UK joke) -
what are various packages doing about it?
Are the "next" versions of packages going to take special steps to warn
people? Do users anticipate problems? Or are the problems so diverse
that there's no point in doing anything apart from reviewing your own
activities and looking for places to check on 1/Jan/2000 (once the hang-over
subsides).
I found that Stata doesn't allow YY dates. Its function mdy delivers a
missing value for mdy(12,1,96) etc. Demands (12,1,1996). Stern but
sensible - the Mary Poppins package.
SPSS has so many variants on dates, but I think they all get stored as a
big number internally. But the Reference Manual says that YY is assumed
to mean 19YY. So YRMODA(00,1,1) *is* 1/Jan/1900. Hence your elapsed days
calculations will run backwards.
Other packages may define YY to mean "the present century". That makes
the same problem if reading retrospective data, but if you've input data
this century and continue in 00 (2000), the accumulated data should be
alright (internally).
Dates and names are forever messy, so maybe whatever you check and plan
in the program, the most important message is to run tests and build
alerts into the data collection/management/analysis process.
PS: this is NOT an invitation for anyone to resume a "does the 21st
century start in 2000 or 2001?" debate.
R. Allan Reese Email: r.a.reese@ucc.hull.ac.uk
Head of Applications Direct voice: +44 1482 465296
Academic Services Computing Voice messages: +44 1482 465685
Hull University, Hull HU6 7RX, UK. Fax: +44 1482 466441
