ASA SQL Reference
SQL Data Types
The problem of handling dates, in particular year values in and beyond the year 2000, was a significant issue for the computer industry.
This section examines the year 2000 compliance of Adaptive Server Anywhere. It illustrates how date values are handled internally by Adaptive Server Anywhere, and how Adaptive Server Anywhere handles ambiguous date information, such as the conversion of a two digit year string value.
Users of Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere and its predecessors can be assured that dates are handled and stored internally in a manner not adversely effected by the transition from the 20th century to the 21st century.
Consider the following measurements of Adaptive Server Anywhere year 2000 compliance:
Adaptive Server Anywhere always returns correct values for any legal arithmetic and logical operations on dates, regardless of whether the calculated values span different centuries.
At all times, the Adaptive Server Anywhere internal storage of dates explicitly includes the century portion of a year value.
The operation of Adaptive Server Anywhere is unaffected by any return value, including the current date.
Date values can always be output in full century format.
Many of the date-related topics summarized in this section are explained in greater detail in other parts of the documentation.
How dates are stored
Sending and retrieving date values
Leap years
Ambiguous string to date conversions
Date to string conversions