SPR

Technote

Problem:
This issue was reported to Lotus Quality Engineering (spr #JELL4A9KRV) and has
been fixed in Notes 5.0.2a and Notes 5.0.3.

Excerpt from the Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino Release 5.0.3 QMR fix list:

Client
SPR# JELL4A9KRV, ABON45DRX3, BMAN46VRV4, LLAR464VY8, LLAR46RAYP, JPOR4CLK5L,
JPOR4D9EW7, TDEY49RRXQ, DCOY4CML9V, BKR4DUQBM, JPOR4CUGTP - Fix various
problems with the new R5 feature which attempts to interpret dates/times
entered by the user which do not strictly conform to the format in the user
preferences or in the database designer preferences. Lotus now provides a
NOTES.INI variable, StrictDateTimeInput, which reverts to pre-R5 behavior and
gives the user errors (instead of interpreting unambiguous dates which are
merely formatted incorrectly). [5.0.2a,5.0.3]


The issue stems from increased date input interpretation functionality that was
introduced in Notes 5.0. Notes 5.x recognizes that a Day input of 32 or
greater is not appropriate; however; Notes 5.0 through 5.0.2 incorrectly
assumes that a Day parameter of 32 or greater is the Year parameter and then
ignores the last and intended Year parameter.

From the example above, an input of 3/32/98 is seen as a MM/YY input in Notes
5.0 through 5.0.2. Whenever there is an input of MM/YY, Notes returns the
date MM/01/YY. So, in the case of 3/32/98, the returned date is 3/01/2032.
The year parameter is interpreted as the 21st century because Notes is designed
to interpret two digit year input from 00 - 49 as 20xx, and from 50 - 99 as
19xx.

In Notes 5.02a (and above), date interpretation was corrected so that any Day
input parameters that are not appropriate for the given Month always return the
appropriate error "Unable to interpret Time or Date." This also addresses the
leap year issue where input of the date 2/29/99 returned 2/29/2000.

Supporting Information:

Date input interpretation is quite robust in Notes Release 5.x. If one types
in a date using in an unexpected order, given the operating systems defaults,
Notes can still interpret the date.

Given a system default date style of MM/DD/YY, if you enter a date in the
format of YY/MM/DD or YY/DD/MM, the date is correctly interpreted as a date
MM/DD/YY. In cases where the second and third parameters are both valid Day
and Month values, then the interpretation is YY/MM/DD. For example:

Entering 99/1/12 and selecting F9 results in 1/12/99.
Entering 99/13/12 and selecting F9 results in 12/13/99.

The added date interpretation functionality of Notes R5 is not limited to
simply interpreting YY/MM/DD and YY/DD/MM. The ability to interpret date input
parameters covers all permutations possible: MM/YY/DD, DD/YY/MM, DD/MM/YY.

See the related document below for additional information on how Notes 5.x
interprets dates when only one or two parameters are used for input.

NOTE: In Notes 5.02a, an additional Notes.INI parameter was introduced to
allow you to disable the date interpretation methodology used in R5. The INI
parameter is StrictDateTimeInput. Setting it to 1 disables the R5 date
interpretation methodology.

For example:

StrictDateTimeInput=1

Related Documents:

How Notes R5 Interprets One- and Two-Parameter Date Input
Document #: 173478 More >