Suggestion: DATE.YMD

[Richard Ristow]

At 11:24 AM 9/6/2007, Fry, Jonathan B. wrote:

>DATE.YMD is not one of the date functions.

How about putting it in? It's so natural to expect it that I, too, have
written it many times, and had to go back and change my code.

[Ornelas, Fermin]

This actually seems more intuitive than YRMODA..

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Richard Ristow
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 5:28 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Suggestion: DATE.YMD

At 11:24 AM 9/6/2007, Fry, Jonathan B. wrote:

>DATE.YMD is not one of the date functions.

How about putting it in? It's so natural to expect it that I, too, have
written it many times, and had to go back and change my code.

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[Richard Ristow]

I'd written,

>>DATE.YMD is not one of the date functions.
>
>How about putting it in? It's so natural to expect it that I, too,
>have
>written it many times, and had to go back and change my code.


At 10:41 AM 9/7/2007, Ornelas, Fermin wrote:

>This actually seems more intuitive than YRMODA.

I'd say so. But it's not just that it's a more intuitive name.

'DATE.YMD' would not be equivalent to 'YRMODA'!

DATE.YMD would follow other modern aggregation functions, in giving
"the number of seconds since the day before 10/15/1582" (per Richard
Oliver, and not quite what the SPSS Command Syntax reference says).

YRMODA, in contrast, gives "the number of *DAYS* since October 14, 1582
(day 0 of the Gregorian calendar) [emphasis added]." (From SPSS 15 CSR.
And as Richard Oliver pointed out, it should be "the number of days
since the day before 10/15/1582").