From: Bob Leif
To: Dale_Stanbrough et al.
This makes eminent sense. We could start with the oldest known calendar
system. Anyone know what was the first recorded date? Could we use a record
which included a sibling of the present Ada.Calendar.Year_Number with some
reasonable range and a second Integer which would be the epoch. The epoch
could be initialized to some value, perhaps 0 or 1 and thus not have to be
included in a subprogram call? I wish to avoid the use of 64 bit integer
types, which are inappropriate for present, inexpensive, simple systems.



-----Original Message-----
From: Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Dale Stanbrough
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2000 6:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: C date package


>It is possible to change the Ada standard in the forward
>direction and require implementors to handle the leap year
>math correctly.
>
>It is not possible to change the Ada standard in a uniform
>and useful manner in the backward direction because of all
>the diversity of how the calendar works according to the
>political decisions in various jurisdictions.  There are
>11 days missing from 1752, depending on your religion and
>citizenship.


i would disagree. In the same way that we use GMT as  standard for time, we
should be able to come up with a time based system that underlies the
various views that are needed.

After all, a date that is 30,000 days ago -is- 30,000 days ago, no matter
what calendar is used.

1752's interpretation could then be viewed by using a gregorian calendar
package, or a julian calendar package (i presume this is where the
difference is...).


Dale