Re: timestamp patch to extend legal range of dates.

 [snip...]

> I got my data from
> http://serendipity.magnet.ch/hermetic/cal_stud/cal_art.htm
> which also talks about proleptic calendars; that is, the current
> calendar is projected backwards (or the Julian calendar is projected
> forwards), so that there are no breaks in the sequence of dates.
>
> Does the SQL standard define what calendar it is using?  My copy of Date
> & Cannan: 'SQL -- The Standard Handbook' says:
>
> "YEAR - Valid values: 0001 to 9999.  This permits the specification of
> dates prior to the invention of the Gregorian calendar and assumes that
> the rules of the Gregorian calendar can be applied retrospectively."
>
> So I suggest we should use the Gregorian proleptic calendar as the
> default.
>
> Example:    England       Italy         Proleptic
>                                         Gregorian
>
>           15 Sep 1752   15 Sep 1752    15 Sep 1752
>            1 Sep 1752   12 Sep 1752    12 Sep 1752
>           25 Mar 1751    5 Apr 1751     5 Apr 1751
>           24 Mar 1750    4 Apr 1751     4 Apr 1751
>            6 Oct 1582   15 Oct 1582    15 Oct 1582
>            5 Oct 1582    5 Oct 1582    14 Oct 1582
>           24 Mar 1581   24 Mar 1582     3 Apr 1582
>
 [snip...]

Point taken. I withdraw my patch. However, I'm going to examine date2j()
and j2date() functions a bit closer and see if I can restructure them to
eliminate the overflow problems they have. I would still like for those
functions to be capable of dealing with the full range of available numbers.