Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
• Developing mass-update tools and technologies that can make changes
rapidly
• Developing improved testing methods to minimize the risks of missed
dates
Unfortunately, the current international standards for dates are not adequate and
do not support scientific dates or any long-range date calculations. There are no
proven methods for finding indirect dates or dates embedded in other fields, such
as part numbers. Much of the work of finding and repairing date fields remains
manual and labor intensive.
Further, testing of software has never been 100% effective, and testing for date
and numeric fields has seldom been more than 95% efficient and often worse.
Looking back at the Y2K problem, almost a third of the reported Y2K problems
occurred in applications that had been repaired, tested, and put back into service.
Incompatibilities of International Date Formats
For centuries, the way in which dates are represented when they are printed has
varied from country to country. These variations presented no real problem until
the advent of the computer era. Even with computers, the problems were fairly
minor, but it was obviously necessary to know which date format was used in or-
der to ensure correct date calculations.
For example, in the United States, a format of month/day/year such as 10/6/98
for October 6, 1998, is used. In much of Europe, the same date would be printed
using the format of day/month/year or 6/10/98 for the same day. The European
form might be misinterpreted as June 10th in the United States, or the U.S. format
might be misinterpreted as June 10th in Europe if the software assumed the wrong
alternative.
To facilitate international trade and commerce using computers and software,
the International Organization of Standards (ISO) has proposed a standard date
format that expands the number of year digits from two to four. This is the well-
known ISO standard 8601: 1988(E). This same format is supported by the Americ-
an National Standards Institute (ANSI) and by the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST).
The ISO date format puts the year first, then the month, and then the day using
the format yyyy/mm/dd. Thus, the date of October 6, 1998, would be represented
as 1998/10/06 using the ISO standard. (Note that the slash symbols “/” are not part
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