Amendment 2: Date range for the 1904 date base?

[rjelliffe at allette.com.au]

> It's also been pointed out to me that the 1904 date base has a curtailed
> range - although the 1900 date base can go back to the year -9999, the
> 1904 date base is stuck at 1904. I propose that, in strict, we allow the
> 1904 date base to cover the same range as 1900 (years -9999 to 9999). In
> transitional it should retain the same range as it had in Ecma-376 (and
> currently has in strict).
>
> Does anyone have any objections to these changes? The 1904 date base is
> used a lot less than 1900 but there's no technological reason as to why it
> shouldn't have the same functionality.

(Apart from to discourage its use, that is.  If you take of "legacy" from
the name, you should put in an equivalent note deprecating it. Remember
that the purpose of OOXML is not just to document what is there, it is to
get out of these messes.)

What is the reason for limiting ranges by numbers of characters (ie by
lexical space)?

Surely it would make more sense to describe date indexes in terms of 2^n
values (ie by value space) such as xs:short?

E.g. "The value space of a date index is a signed short integer (i.e.
requiring 16 bits). Note: For compatibility, the value space may the
pattern -?\d{1-5}."

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe