I know it's not a valid date, that's why it was used - there was lots of
special case "if it's 99/99/99 then (it's the end of the database marker)
otherwise it's a valid record)" and lots of loops to continue until we hit
99/99/99. It wouldn't be anything a user could enter, but it was used
internally all over the place.
However, this is probably a bit too off-topic for this list.
- Tab
At 02:38 AM 9/9/99 -0400, Trevor Boicey wrote:
>Tab Julius wrote:
>>
>> No, it's not so. I don't know who started it.
>>
>> What we USED to do was, typically in databases, use 99/99/99 as an
>> end-of-records marker.
>
> Hmmm... unfortunately 99/99/99 isn't a valid date, so many
>programs will not accept it. Especially those programs from the
>"old times" when using *SIX* rows of core to hold a date
>would have been grounds for dismissal.
>
> Specifically, the 9/9/99 isn't just a shutdown code, it's basically
>an exception code that was oft-abused to hold whatever exception
>was likely to the application.
>
> It stems from having only a fixed field that only holds
>a date, but having the need to store a code in there that
>means something other than a date, such as "I don't know" or
>"no date" and so on.
>
> A typical example might be account expiries. My account might
>expire on 1/1/81, and yours on 4/1/83. But the system administrator's
>account should never expire, right? So let's put 9999 in there
>so it never expires. Guess what, 9/9/99 actually happens if
>the system is left on long enough. ;>
>
> Moss Motors fell victim to a similar problem with their
>last years catalogs. They seemed to be using a code price
>for no longer available items, I think it was $123.01 or
>at least came out that way.
>
> So when you called asking for a NOS piston set for
>an MGA twincam, or a NOS TD radiator, their computer would
>say "not available".
>
> Except, they printed $123.01 in the price catalog. Imagine
>how many calls they got looking for long out of stock items
>that were suddenly available for a mere $123.01?
>
>--
>Trevor Boicey, P. Eng.
>Ottawa, Canada, tboicey@brit.ca
>ICQ #17432933 http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
>http://www.bargainbritish.com
>
>
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