Clipper - Day 1 ??

Author

Day 1 ??

Mel Smith

2004-11-20, 3:55 am

Dear Friends,

I'd like to know what date 'Day 1' in Clipper usage is:

That is,

Today is (for me) Nov 19, 2004

If I perform the following simple calculation:

nDays := DATE() - CTOD("")

I get nDays equal to 2,453,329 (quite a while ago !!)

Question: What is *that* date a couple of a million days ago ??

Reason: I've got a user who is suggesting I use Julian Dates (and its day 0),
but I think I'd prefer to use Clipper's Base Date.

TIA,

-Mel Smith

Ross McKenzie

2004-11-20, 3:55 am

On 20 Nov 2004 01:53:32 GMT, medsyntel@aol.comnocrud (Mel Smith)
wrote:

>Dear Friends,
>
> I'd like to know what date 'Day 1' in Clipper usage is:
>
> That is,
>
> Today is (for me) Nov 19, 2004
>
> If I perform the following simple calculation:
>
> nDays := DATE() - CTOD("")
>
> I get nDays equal to 2,453,329 (quite a while ago !!)
>
>Question: What is *that* date a couple of a million days ago ??
>
>Reason: I've got a user who is suggesting I use Julian Dates (and its day 0),
>but I think I'd prefer to use Clipper's Base Date.
>
>TIA,
>
>-Mel Smith
>
>

Hi Mel,

How about doing

dDate := Date() - 2453329

Alert( "day 1 is " + dtoc( dDate ) )

I use Julian date/time for some applications, eg countdown timer for
future events like weddings, or for calculating high resolution ages.
But I use a nominal base year of 2000 (used to be 1990) for future
events and 1900 for past ones.

I have Phil Barnett's collection of julian date functions (on the
Oasis as JULIAN.ZIP) which I have modified for my own use. Happy to
send to you if you want.

Regards,

Ross McKenzie
ValuSoft
Melbourne Australia

valusoft AT optushome DOT com DOT au

When there's a will, I want to be in it

Peter B. Steiger

2004-11-20, 3:55 am

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 05:40:12 +0000, Ross McKenzie sez:
> Alert( "day 1 is " + dtoc( dDate ) )

Ross, did you try that and get an actual date as a result? I assume that
"alert" thing is some xharbour gizmo, but in plain ol' Clipper that gets
you a null date. In fact, I discovered that Clipper doesn't do B.C. at all
- any date before 01/01/0001 comes back as 0/0/0.

Just roughly calculating it (at 365.25 days per year) gets about 6700 B.C.

--
Peter B. Steiger
Cheyenne, WY
If you must reply by email, you can reach me by placing zeroes
where you see stars: wypbs_**3 at bornagain.com.

pete@nospam.demon.co.uk

2004-11-20, 8:55 am

In article <419ed697.23743812@news> valusoft "Ross McKenzie" writes:

> On 20 Nov 2004 01:53:32 GMT, medsyntel@aol.comnocrud (Mel Smith)
> wrote:
>

As far as I can tell, somewhen around 4713 BC though I have no
idea what significance it might have! Some time back when I was
trying to fix a "feature" in the S87 leap year handling I came
across a magic number, 1721060, in the library code and which is
used as a bias for BC dates and wondered then why such a number
had been chosen.

If you do the rough maths, (2453329 - 1721060) / 365.25 comes out
around 2004.8 which is pretty close to today's date (in years).
So "DATE() - 1721060" should give you the number of days since
01/01/0000 (or perhaps 01/01/0001 as there was no year 0). And as
far as I can see the S87 code takes no account of the "lost" days
at the changeover of the Julian/Gregorian calendars. If you're
interested in this stuff there's almost certainly a blow-by-blow
account at <http://www.merlyn.deon.co.uk> (I haven't checked).
[color=darkred]
>
> Hi Mel,
>
> How about doing
>
> dDate := Date() - 2453329
>
> Alert( "day 1 is " + dtoc( dDate ) )

I haven't tried that, but would not be surprised to see 00/00/00
or a runtime error...

> I use Julian date/time for some applications, eg countdown timer for
> future events like weddings, or for calculating high resolution ages.
> But I use a nominal base year of 2000 (used to be 1990) for future
> events and 1900 for past ones.
>
> I have Phil Barnett's collection of julian date functions (on the
> Oasis as JULIAN.ZIP) which I have modified for my own use. Happy to
> send to you if you want.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ross McKenzie
> ValuSoft
> Melbourne Australia
>
> valusoft AT optushome DOT com DOT au
>
> When there's a will, I want to be in it

Presumably as a beneficiary rather than as the late departed? <g>

Pete
--
"We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors,
we have borrowed it from our descendants."

Ross McKenzie

2004-11-20, 8:55 am

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 23:52:06 -0700, "Peter B. Steiger"
<see.sig@for.email.address> wrote:

>On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 05:40:12 +0000, Ross McKenzie sez:
>
>Ross, did you try that and get an actual date as a result?

What...and have to go into debugging mode as a result? No.

>I assume that
>"alert" thing is some xharbour gizmo,

"Alert", an xharbour gizmo ?. No, introduced with Clipper 5.01 <g>.

>but in plain ol' Clipper that gets
>you a null date. In fact, I discovered that Clipper doesn't do B.C. at all
>- any date before 01/01/0001 comes back as 0/0/0.

See below...

>
>Just roughly calculating it (at 365.25 days per year) gets about 6700 B.C.
>
>--
>Peter B. Steiger
>Cheyenne, WY
>If you must reply by email, you can reach me by placing zeroes
>where you see stars: wypbs_**3 at bornagain.com.
>

PS...went into debugging mode anyway <g>.

On 20 November 2004 subtract 732 270 days you get back to New Year's
Day of the 1st century (01/01/0000). Subtract any larger numbers and
you get a constant 00/00/0000. All dates between 01/01/0000 and your
bottom limit Peter are actually accessible, so I am assuming a typo on
your part.

Now wasn't that fun? Speaking of which...in the early 1980s I
lived/worked in Saudi Arabia. Their calendar is named Hijra (hope that
is the correct transliteration) and the year was something like 1471
at the time. One day we calculated how long it would take the year of
the Hijra calendar to be numerically equivalent numerically to the
Gregorian calendar. It was another 25,000 years or thereabouts as I
recall it.

Always thought that we should metricate dates...10 hours to the day,
10 days to the w

, 10 w

s to the month, etc, etc, enough
nonsense...see what you started Mel!!!

Regards,

Ross McKenzie
ValuSoft
Melbourne Australia

valusoft AT optushome DOT com DOT au

When there's a will, I want to be in it

Ross McKenzie

2004-11-20, 8:55 am

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:49:04 +0000 (UTC), pete@nospam.demon.co.uk
wrote:

>In article <419ed697.23743812@news> valusoft "Ross McKenzie" writes:
>
>
>As far as I can tell, somewhen around 4713 BC though I have no
>idea what significance it might have! Some time back when I was
>trying to fix a "feature" in the S87 leap year handling I came
>across a magic number, 1721060, in the library code and which is
>used as a bias for BC dates and wondered then why such a number
>had been chosen.

1721060 is the number of copies of Clipper NEVER bought, but in use at
any date...

>
>If you do the rough maths, (2453329 - 1721060) / 365.25 comes out
>around 2004.8 which is pretty close to today's date (in years).
>So "DATE() - 1721060" should give you the number of days since
>01/01/0000 (or perhaps 01/01/0001 as there was no year 0). And as
>far as I can see the S87 code takes no account of the "lost" days
>at the changeover of the Julian/Gregorian calendars. If you're
>interested in this stuff there's almost certainly a blow-by-blow
>account at <http://www.merlyn.deon.co.uk> (I haven't checked).
>

>
>I haven't tried that, but would not be surprised to see 00/00/00
>or a runtime error...

No GPF....a null string though.

>
>Presumably as a beneficiary rather than as the late departed? <g>

Preferably <g>

>
>Pete
>--
> "We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors,
> we have borrowed it from our descendants."

Regards,

Ross McKenzie
ValuSoft
Melbourne Australia

valusoft AT optushome DOT com DOT au

When there's a will, I want to be in it

Nick Ramsay

2004-11-20, 8:55 am

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:49:04 +0000 (UTC), pete@nospam.demon.co.uk
wrote:

>If you're
>interested in this stuff there's almost certainly a blow-by-blow
>account at <http://www.merlyn.deon.co.uk> (I haven't checked).
>
Slight typo, Pete:

http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/

pete@nospam.demon.co.uk

2004-11-20, 3:55 pm

In article <h16up01d8olaeh64ih4111f7n6gag0tggj@4ax.com>
delete-all-spam2@witzendcs.co.uk "Nick Ramsay" writes:

> On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:49:04 +0000 (UTC), pete@nospam.demon.co.uk
> wrote:
>
> Slight typo, Pete:
>
> http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/

Oops! That'll teach me not to post so early, before the caffeine
has had a chance to get the brain and fingers working properly <g>

Thanks for the correction, Nick.

Pete
--
"We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors,
we have borrowed it from our descendants."

Mel Smith

2004-11-20, 3:55 pm

Ross (and all the others who posted below this),

Thanks for the interest.

Ross, I'll drop in at the Oasis. If I can get what I want (or *don't want*),
I'll give you a dingle.

Thanks for the offer.

-Mel Smith

Peter B. Steiger

2004-11-20, 3:55 pm

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:26:05 +0000, Ross McKenzie sez:
> On 20 November 2004 subtract 732 270 days you get back to New Year's
> Day of the 1st century (01/01/0000). Subtract any larger numbers and
> you get a constant 00/00/0000. All dates between 01/01/0000 and your
> bottom limit Peter are actually accessible, so I am assuming a typo on
> your part.

I wrote my followup a good ten minutes after running the experiment, so
the error was in a faulty memory circuit :-)

--
Peter B. Steiger
Cheyenne, WY
If you must reply by email, you can reach me by placing zeroes
where you see stars: wypbs_**3 at bornagain.com.

Joe Wright

2004-11-20, 3:55 pm

Mel Smith wrote:
> Ross (and all the others who posted below this),
>
> Thanks for the interest.
>
>
> Ross, I'll drop in at the Oasis. If I can get what I want (or *don't want*),
> I'll give you a dingle.
>
> Thanks for the offer.
>
> -Mel Smith
>

Is that 'strayun' or something? 'jingle' I know. 'dingle'? :=)

As to dates, the subject is fascinating indeed. I find the dtos form
the most useful. Today is 'dtos(date())' or '20041120'. I like it
because as a char type is easily combined with other char data as
index keys and filter masks.

--
Joe Wright mailto:joewwright@comcast.net
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---

Mel Smith

2004-11-20, 3:55 pm

Dear Friends,

I wrote a little looping proggy that takes me back to Day '0'.

Turns out that the BaseDate of Clipper 5.2e is (by my calcs) is:

Wednesday, Feb 8, 4712 BC

Now why is it not a Sunday (or a Saturday ??)

Mel Smith

2004-11-20, 3:55 pm

Dear Friends,

A 'typo' in my previous post.

Clipper BaseDate is *Thursday*, Feb 8, 4712 BC

Mel Smith

2004-11-20, 8:55 pm

Joe,

'Dingle' used to mean a call on the telephone :))

-Mel

Ross McKenzie

2004-11-20, 8:55 pm

On 20 Nov 2004 21:56:09 GMT, medsyntel@aol.comnocrud (Mel Smith)
wrote:

>Joe,
>
> 'Dingle' used to mean a call on the telephone :))
>
>-Mel
>

Must be your accent that I am reading <g>....here in Australia giving
you a call on the telephone was always "give you a tingle" or bell.

Regards,

Ross McKenzie
ValuSoft
Melbourne Australia

valusoft AT optushome DOT com DOT au

When there's a will, I want to be in it

Mel Smith

2004-11-21, 3:55 pm

To: Ross and all my friends here:

I downloaded Julian.zip from the Oasis, and made a couple of minor changes
(all I changed was to make noon in my Time Zone the default time).

Using this package (and thanks to Ross for the pointer), the Julian Date for
Nov 19,2004 was 38308. However, this is really the 'Dublin Julian Day' (DJD) --
which is a "programmer's" Julian Date.

OTOH, our original calculation:

nDaysAgo := STOD("20041119") - CTOD("")

results in the number 2,453,329

Surprisingly, this 'nDaysAgo' value is the *original* (or standard or
astronomical) Julian Date for Nov 19, 2004.

In summary, Clipper's Base Date seems to be the same as the starting date
for calculation of the standard Julian Date that astronomers use.

-Mel Smith

Richard Bos

2004-11-22, 8:55 pm

medsyntel@aol.comnocrud (Mel Smith) wrote:

> Dear Friends,
>
> A 'typo' in my previous post.
>
> Clipper BaseDate is *Thursday*, Feb 8, 4712 BC

1 Jan 4713 BC, Julian calendar, is the starting point of the current
Julian Day Number cycle, which has JDN 1.
Julius Caesar declared 1 Jan 4712 BC (obviously Julian calendar as well)
to be the first day of the Julian calendar.
I suspect that either one of the two statements above is a year off, or
Joseph Scaliger made a mistake when he devised the JDN system, but I'm
not sure which.
I haven't done the math, but it wouldn't surprise me if 8 Feb 4712 BC in
the Gregorian proleptic calendar (i.e., the modern calendar, counted
back into Julian and pre-Julian times) were to equal 1 Jan 4712/3 in the
Julian proleptic calendar, and therefore to be JDN 1.

Richard

pete@nospam.demon.co.uk

2004-11-23, 3:55 am

Mel Smith

2004-11-23, 3:55 am

Peter B. Steiger

2004-11-23, 3:55 am

Mel Smith

2004-11-23, 3:55 pm

Dear Friends,

A 'typo' in my previous post.

Clipper BaseDate is *Thursday*, Feb 8, 4712 BC

Mel Smith

2004-11-23, 3:55 pm

Lady Chatterly

2004-11-26, 3:55 am

In article <20041119205332.00405.00001001@mb-m17.aol.com> medsyntel@aol.comnocrud (Mel Smith) wrote:
>
>Dear Friends,
>
>I'd like to know what date 'Day 1' in Clipper usage is:

You really need to get over yourself. I don't give a rat's ass whether
or not you choose to write, or what you choose to write about. If I
disagree, I'll state it. If you have a problem with the way I do,
then exercise your right not to read my posts. All key boards, that I
know of come with a delete key. If yours doesn't, go buy one that
does.

>That is,

Of course you wouldn't understand. That was supposed to be a joke. And
you're a humorless monomaniac.

>Today is (for me) Nov 19, 2004

I bet you think triple sec has something a ménage a trois, huh?

>If I perform the following simple calculation:

Your secret is secure with me. If anyone asks, claim plausible denial.

>nDays := DATE() - CTOD("")

On the Internet, we can be whomever we want. And no, I will not date
you.

>I get nDays equal to 2,453,329 (quite a while ago !!)
>
>Question: What is *that* date a couple of a million days ago ??

Why do you wonder if that date a couple of a million days ago is?

>Reason: I've got a user who is suggesting I use Julian Dates (and its day 0),
>but I think I'd prefer to use Clipper's Base Date.
>
>TIA,

Why do you want to know who suggesting you use Julian dates is?

>-Mel Smith

You are an idiot. But why let that stop you? You never have before.

--
Lady Chatterly

"I have a very high regard for Lady Chatterly; in fact I think of her
every time I am on Capitol Hill in Seattle." -- cactus

Lady Chatterly

2004-11-26, 3:55 am

In article <20041120100452.09790.00000547@mb-m20.aol.com> medsyntel@aol.comnocrud (Mel Smith) wrote:
>
>Ross (and all the others who posted below this),
>
>Thanks for the interest.

Please deliver your slathery insults elsewhere. I am not interested.

>Ross, I'll drop in at the Oasis. If I can get what I want (or *don't want*),
>I'll give you a dingle.

SGVyZSB3ZSBnbyBhZ2Fpbi4uLiBJIHdhcyAneWFu
a2luZyB5b3VyIGNoYWluJywgb
GlrZSwgZHVoISBBcmVuJ3QgeW91IGdldHRpbmcgd
GlyZWQgb2YgYmVpbmcgc28gc3
R1cGlkPyAgTmV2ZXIgbWluZC4gIEkgZ3Vlc3MgeW
91J3JlIGhhcHB5Li4u

>Thanks for the offer.

I suggest you accept the interview offer. Better to tell your story
than have someone tell it for you.

>-Mel Smith

Are you jealous or something?

--
Lady Chatterly

"This if for Robert Griffin, Australian bum, who posts with 'Secure
Alert' and numerous other with holes riddled and bad smelling sock
puppets. He also posts with 'Lady Chatterly'" -- Barbara Schwarz

Mel Smith

2004-11-26, 3:55 am

Chatterly barfed the following:

>Please deliver your slathery insults elsewhere. I am not interested.

Where did he/she/it come from:

-Mel

Bruce Boddington

2004-11-26, 3:55 am

"Mel Smith" <medsyntel@aol.comnocrud> wrote in message
news:20041126001010.06002.00000734@mb-m21.aol.com...
>
> Chatterly barfed the following:
>
>
> Where did he/she/it come from:
>
> -Mel
>

Mel,

Don't know, but he\she\it has gone through c.l.c.visual-objects like a dose
of salts too.
Nothing to do and all day to do it.

Cheers

Bruce

pete@nospam.demon.co.uk

2004-11-26, 3:55 am

In article <20041126001010.06002.00000734@mb-m21.aol.com>
medsyntel@aol.comnocrud "Mel Smith" writes:

> Chatterly barfed the following:
>
>
> Where did he/she/it come from:

Check the headers:

Newsgroups: comp.lang.clipper,alt.usenet.kooks

And I suspect even "it" suggests something higher up the food
chain than is merited...

> -Mel
>

Pete
--
"We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors,
we have borrowed it from our descendants."

Ross McKenzie

2004-11-26, 8:55 am

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 05:28:46 GMT, "Bruce Boddington" <top@bottom.org>
wrote:

>"Mel Smith" <medsyntel@aol.comnocrud> wrote in message
>news:20041126001010.06002.00000734@mb-m21.aol.com...
>
>Mel,
>
>Don't know, but he\she\it has gone through c.l.c.visual-objects like a dose
>of salts too.
>Nothing to do and all day to do it.
>
>Cheers
>
>Bruce
>
>

May be a robot programmed to trigger on specific words. Don't take it
personally Mel <g>.

Regards,

Ross McKenzie
ValuSoft
Melbourne Australia

valusoft AT optushome DOT com DOT au

When there's a will, I want to be in it

Ray Marron

2004-11-26, 3:55 pm

<pete@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1101450424snz@nospam.demon.co.uk...
> Check the headers:
>
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.clipper,alt.usenet.kooks
[SNIP]

Right! Everybody be careful not to reply to crossposts! We want to keep the
trail of breadcrumbs leading to comp.lang.clipper as small as possible...

--
Ray Marron

Mel Smith

2004-11-26, 8:55 pm

Joe,

'Dingle' used to mean a call on the telephone :))

-Mel

Mel Smith

2004-11-29, 3:55 pm

Lady Chatterly

2004-11-29, 3:55 pm

Lady Chatterly

2004-11-29, 3:55 pm

Bruce Boddington

2004-11-29, 3:55 pm

Ross McKenzie

2004-11-29, 3:55 pm

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