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From: chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Why does "cal 9 1752" produce incorrect results?
Message-ID: <28082@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 90 08:55:02 GMT
References: <3313@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> <1990Nov27.110212.131@comp.vuw.ac.nz> <7895.2752d336@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 23

In article <7895.2752d336@uwovax.uwo.ca> 2011_552@uwovax.uwo.ca
(Terry Gaetz (Astronomy, U. Western Ontario)) writes:
>Pope Gregory issued a papal bull in 1582 ordering that the new calendar be
>introduced.  It was adopted immediately by Catholic countries and
>principalities, but the Greek church and the Protestant countries refused.
>The changeover straggled over several centuries - Romania used the Julian 
>calendar until 1919.

(Trust astronomers to know about dates! :-) )

>In September 1752, England and the American colonies adopted the Gregorian
>calendar.  "Cal 9 1752" correctly handles the transition as adopted by
>England and the United States.

Of course, now that Unix is being `internationalized', someone will
have to fix `cal'.  Clearly the right answer is to adopt the System V
convention, and code the rules into an environment variable. :-)

(The above was intended as a sarcastic comment about SV `TZ' rules.
Why POSIX did not just adopt the Arthur Olson approach is beyond me.)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 405 2750)
Domain:	chris@cs.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris