When I wrote code back in the 60's and 70's using FORTRAN, we would read
the data, then check for 999999 and if that apeared, we interpreted it
as End Of File and the program then processed the apropriate code to
stop reading the data and do the calculations and print the report.
When you read a record with FORTRAN, the read statement tells what the
numbers mean by the position of the numbers. I doubt that any of that
code still is running except on the ancient machines we still have at
work, a Buroughs B 1900 and Control Data 1700 series mainframes.
They run FORTRAN and COBOL, I will let you know if they crash tomorrow.
:)
Alexander Dietrich wrote:
>
> Could you explain that ? I believe the assumption was that some
> programs represent the 9/9/99 as "9999" which incidentally is
> used by other/the same programs as some sort of signal.
> "9999" is a string representation, so how is your program going
> to figure that "9999" = "9/9/99" if it ever wants to get a useful
> date back ?
--
Jim Coon
Not just another pretty mandolin picker
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
If Gibson made cars, would they sound so sweet?
My first web page
http://www.tir.com/~liteways/
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