ILE CEE Date and Time Notation and Limits

Calendars used by the date and time ILE CEE APIs have specific notation and limits associated with them. Following is a description of the notation and the limits.

Notation

Calendars based on eras use unique strings to identify these eras. An era is defined by a major event in time from which date calculations take place. These identification strings are called picture strings. The following picture strings are supported:

Japanese era

Identified by one 6-character string

<JJJJ>

Republic of China (ROC) era

Identified by one 6-character string

<CCCC>

or by one 10-character string

<CCCCCCCC>

The era picture string begins with the less than character (<) and ends with the greater than character (>). The characters within these characters are either uppercase Js or uppercase Cs.

Note: An era is defined by a major event in time from which date calculations take place.

Limits

Date variables associated with certain calendars have certain limitations. These limits are:

starting Lilian date

The beginning of the Lilian date range is set to 15 October 1582. This is defined as Lilian day 1. Lilian day zero is defined as 14 October 1582, and is used for calculation purposes in several of the APIs. Lilian second 1 is defined as 00:00:01 on 14 October 1582, and is used for calculation purposes in several of the APIs. Only Lilian dates greater than or equal to 1 are valid as input or produced as output in the date and time APIs. This is the date of adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Lilian dates preceding this date are undefined.

end Lilian date

The end of the Lilian date range is set to 31 December 9999. Lilian dates following this date are undefined.

limit of current era

The maximum future date that can be expressed in the era system must be within the first 999 years of the current era. Future dates beyond year 999 of the current era are not defined.

number of eras

The eras supported by ILE are shown within this section. No other past eras are supported by ILE at the present time. Future eras will be added as required.