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