Y2K Versions

[Chris Sharman]

>I am concerned about the extent to which a version upgrade will invalidate
>the Y2K modifications and testing we have been engaged in for the past year.
>To tell the truth, it is very disturbing to find out at this stage that the
>version we started with (7.10E) is not Y2K compliant.  It is really far too
>late to start again with new Powerhouse versions, and I am at a loss to
>understand why Cognos has left this to the last minute.

I'm surprised you're so ill-informed, to be honest.
Do you have a support contract with Cognos ?
Did you ask them for a compliance statement ?
If yes then I think you should complain pretty loudly to them: if not then
it's really your own lookout, but this list & the public portion of the Cognos
website should give you most of the info.

7.10.F has been around for a year or so, as others have said.
The "millenium friendly" version was announced some time ago too, although
7.10.G is a recent innovation (all other platforms have to go to V8, but I
think they felt they had too much to do to get V8 for VMS out in time, hence
V7.10.G.

We're a fairly small company, but we've had 7.10.F3, and have now received
7.10.G.

>What sort of upgrades are 7.10F2 and 7.10G?  

Nothing earth-shattering in 7.10F*.
7.10.G provides all the millenium friendly features people have been wanting:

A default century *window*, settable dictionary-wide and/or on individual dates.
	This enables you to set the window as (say) 1970 to 2069, so that a
	date typed in by a user of 31-dec-99 or 1-jan-00 or 29-feb-00 will be
	treated correctly: if they really want 1-jan-1900 (or 2100) they'll
	have to type the century. There's an allowcentury option (again
	dictionarywide or on individual dates) which will allow them to do this
	for any century included date even when the format is ddmmmyy.

You'll obviously have work to do if your dates are century excluded, but if
they're included, the new version should enable you to make one change to the
system options in each dictionary, and have your system work fairly well across
the millenium with no other code changes.

>Will we need to recompile?

Yes, and convert dictionaries.

>Are there any other changes in these version which may destabilize our test
>plan?

Shouldn't do, no, although anything's possible. I've got one extra compilation
warning for "define null ..." which now clashes with the new NULLSEPARATOR
keyword (another self-explanatory option to ease the pain for those who now
want to display 4 digit years but don't have room on screen).

I suggest you ignore 7.10.F and go for 7.10.G.
______________________________________________________________________
Chris Sharman			Chris.Sharman@CCAgroup.co.uk
CCA Stationery Ltd, Eastway, Fulwood, Preston, Lancashire, PR2 9WS.
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