Is RATS affected by the so-called "Year 2000 Problem?"
The short answer is "No."
The long answer is "No, as long as you are careful."
Because RATS supports 4-digit year references, and because the perpetual calendar built into RATS is programmed to handle leap years properly, it doesn't have any inherent limitations regarding the year 2000. You will want to get into the habit of using 4-digit year references. You'll also want to make sure your data files are in good shape. The following comments should help you do just that.
RATS has long allowed you to specify dates using either 2-digit or 4-digit years. This applies to the "year" parameter on the CALENDAR instruction, references to dates elsewhere in your programs, date information on RATS format files, and date labels on spreadsheet-type data files. RATS assumes that all 2-digit year references refer to years in the 20th century.
For example, RATS interprets the "86" in the statement:
CALENDAR 86 1 12
as meaning the year 1986.
If you will be working with data that extends to or beyond the year 2000 (or to years prior to 1900), you should always use 4-digit years when specifying dates. For example:
CALENDAR 1986 1 12
If you have data files that use 2-digit years, and you plan on using that data in programs that will extend to the year 2000, you should convert those dates to 4-digit years. The methods for doing this vary depending on the type of files:
For RATS format files, you should check to see if the file uses 2-digit or 4-digit years. You can do that using DEDIT and CATALOG(FULL) in RATS, or using the RATSDATA utility. For files with 2-digit years, there are a couple of ways to convert to 4-digit years:
For spreadsheet files with dates specified as labels (or for PRN format files), you can convert 2-digit dates to four digits by setting a 4-digit CALENDAR, reading the data in with DATA, and writing it out to a new spreadsheet using COPY.
Spreadsheet files with dates entered as date-format numbers rather than labels should not require any changes. These dating schemes are based on the number of days from a fixed starting date, and should work through at least 2099.
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