OS/2 Shareware BBS: InfoMgt/InfoMgt.zip/doy10.zip/DAYOYEAR.HLP

OS/2 Help File | 1996-01-07 | 8KB | 115 lines

ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. General Help ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This little program will calculate the day of the year (sometimes incorrectly
called a Julian date) when given a normal Gregorian date and likewise, the
reverse is also true. Like most utilities, it was born of necessity. I have
tried to make the interface intuitive and simple; while during the process, I
learned more than I wanted to know about calendars. Also, in the spirit of
those wonderful people at the Free Software Foundation (yes, the long haired
"Power to the people", red-eyed, techno-nerd types STILL lives and breath in
these insane and chaotic times), the program is freeware with only the standard
caveats. I can only find one semi-kind of bug. If you find any more, drop me a
line and I'll try to fix it in my all too little spare time.

Bob Ross
[e-mail]


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. Why this program exists ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Maybe some of you, like myself, still earn our beer money by trying to tame
dinosaurs such as MVS. I found that in this world of quantum physics and Dick
Tracy watches, there was still a need to know the day of the year.

I watched as people scrambled, trying to find a calendar that still had the day
of the year printed on it so they could find out when the retention period of
their tapes, that had such precious data on it, would expire and be lost
forever. Thinking that the personal computers that sit on every desk in every
office should be able to handle this small task, I searched the internet trying
to find such a program, and to my amazement, I found none that fit the bill. I
was somewhat stunned.

I had been looking to write some OS/2 code, but everything that I wanted seemed
to be already written by someone else. So, running on four hours sleep, instead
of six, I knocked this thing off in a few days and I pass it on for your
amusement.

I bet that if you are reading this, we are the only two people in the whole
world that are using it ;-)


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3. Getting it to work ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Simply enter the 4 digit year in the YYYY box and then either the day of the
year in the DDD box to have the program calculate the Gregorian date, or the
numeric month and day in the the MM and DD boxes to have it calculate the day
of the year. For you Boolean freaks, that's (YYYY AND (DDD OR MMDD)). Then just
press Convert.

You can move around the panel using the TAB key or, of course, the mouse; and
the cursor will auto-tab if you fill in the box completely (such as typing in
01 for the month).

Note:  The program first looks for a valid year, then checks for anything in
       the DDD field, then the month and day fields. This means that if you are
       trying to enter a month and day, you better clear the DDD field to get
       the result you expect.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4. Calendar trivia ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This section could be called "Two Old Dead Guys" as you'll see later.

While the Sumerians of Babylonia were probably the first to make a calendar
based on the seasons and the phases of the moon (with 12 lunar months as a
year), we skip ahead to the Romans. Their calendar was 355 days long with
March, May, July, and October having 31 days, February having 28, and the rest
having 29. They would add an extra month every fourth year to try and keep
everything ship shape.

The high priest would regulate the calendar, but performed this function so
poorly that by Julius Caesar's time the summer months were falling in the
spring. Caesar corrected this in 46 BC of the Julian calendar and adopted the
plan of Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes; a 365 day year with an extra day thrown
in during the fourth year. He distributed the extra 10 days amongst the 29 day
months to create those months like we know them today.

Well, old Caesar's calendar was just a tad too long and things still got out of
whack. So, in walks Pope Gregory XIII with a decree that ten days be dropped
from the calendar and that three times in 400 years, the leap year thing should
not count. To get everything synced up, he had October 15, 1582 follow October
4, leaving those days in between in limbo.

While the Roman Catholic countries were marching to this Gregorian thing,
others went along with the Julian method until relatively recent times. England
didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752 (causing 11 days to be dropped
into limbo) and the Chinese didn't get on board until 1912.

This program is siding with the Queen, and performs calculations back to 1753
and goes forward to the year 9999 (it appears that no one has figured out what
to do with the year 4000; is it a leap year or not?).


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5. The legal stuff ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Day of the Year Calculator
Copyright (C) 1995  Bob Ross

BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE
PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE
STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE
PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND
PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU.  SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE,
YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6. Bug Report ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Bug Report V1.0

     The program will accept a "leap date" (February 29) in a non-leap year,
     but it will compensate and still give the correct results.