From what I've read on the net (which is NOT extensive and I'm in no way shape or

Hello folks, I discovered to my utter delight that my lights stayed on during the roll-over. However, after poking around looking for the year 1900, I only found one issue. It appears that the javascript function "getYear" in the Date class is inconsistent between Java implementations. This happens when getYear() is called with no arguments, in other words, when getYear() is queried for the current year. I am not terribly JavaScript "Clue-Compliant" so if I make any blunders in this post, please set me back on track. Specifically, I get the following test results: Platform Browser Version getYear() returns -------- -------- ----------- ----------------- Win98 Netscape 4.61 100 Win98 Netscape 4.7 100 Win98 MSIE 5.00.2919 2000 You can look at what your browser's JavaScript interpreter returns for getYear() by loading: http://www.dreamscape.com/willp/y2k.html Apparently, Netscape 4.61/4.7 is not properly reporting the year in a getYear() call. form a java guru)- the getYear() function should return a 2 digit date up to and including the year 1999. However, in the year 2000 and beyond, getYear() should return a 4-digit date. Now, whoever thought up this getYear() function behavior should be shot, IMNSHO. I saw this when my "CNN Ticker window" in MSIE5 indicated that the current year was 2300. The CNN JavaScript assumes the getYear() function returns the # of years since 1900. Caveat: I have not tried looking at the return values of getYear() in JavaScript on anything other than my own home computer. It is possible (though unlikely I hope) that what I've seen is due to a strange problem with -just- my computer and its mangled DLL files under Windows 98. I would appreciate any confirmation of this strange behavior of getYear() under Netscape and/or any help in understanding this problem. If someone could confirm that they too see the year 3900 on the CNN "ticker bar" and that these results -are- in fact problems, I would really appreciate the feedback! The risk: Any web sites that use the getYear() function will need to accomodate various return values of getYear() and properly distinguish the bizarre results that some browser versions will return. In the case of sites that only use getYear() to *display* the date for the edification of the user, this won't have any operational effects. However, for sites that use date processing in a mission critical situation, there may be some problems. While I have strong hopes that no one would use client-side JavaScript in a mission-critical application, there is still the possibility that this will be a problem on some websites. For most sites affected by this, it will only cause embarassment. Random List of Affected Sites (found so far): CNN http://www.cnn.com/ The CNN "ticker" toolbar (downloadable at: http://www.cnn.com/browsers/explorer.bar/ ) indicates to me that the date is 3900, because their javascript function "ShowDate" adds 1900 to the result of getYear(). (MSIE5.00.2919.6307 on Win98) The date is only used for display purposes (as far as I can tell). Computer Technology Associates http://www.ctai.com/ The date displayed on their homepage indicates "January 1, 192000" under MSIE 5 on Windows 98. Their JavaScript assumes that it is always the 1900's and that getYear() always returns the last two digits of the year. The date is only used for display purposes. Rocky Mountaineer Tours http://www.rkymtnrail.com/ Same problem as for CTAI above. The date is only used for display purposes. JJournal Jeep Owners Resource http://www.jjournal.net/ Same problem as CTAI and Rocky Mountaineer Tours. The date is only used for display purposes. PegasoWeb Web Site Promotion http://www.pegasoweb.com/ Again, year is shown as 192000. The date is used only for display purposes. Web Medicine http://www.webmed.com/ The "last date modified" on this site indicates that the site was last updated on January 1, 3900. Apparently the date is only used for indicating to the visitor that the website is modified daily. Sport/Utility Vehicle Owners Resources http://www.suv.com/ Displays current date as year 192000. Date only used for display purposes. World Trade Center Institute http://www.wtci.org/frmain.htm Displays current date as year 192000. Date only used for display purposes. Inland Empire Online http://www.inlandempireonline.com/business/index.shtml Displays current date as year 192000. Date only used for display purposes. Resources related to this: Overcoming Different Year Conventions - Doc JavaScript http://www.webreference.com/js/pharmacy/article1/overcome.html Y2K JavaScripts http://server9.hypermart.net/ucprogramming/javascript/article1.html JS Year 2000 Very Basic Test Page http://www.nikwilliams.co.uk/jsdate01.html Java City 2000 - Year 2000 Fix http://www.jc2k.com/y2k.html JSBible Calendar Scripts and Y2K http://www.dannyg.com/calendarY2K.html -- Will Pierce Systems Programmer Nuts & Bolts Interactive, Inc. willp@nbinteractive.com P.S. If someone could confirm this behavior as being due to 1. differences in the implementation of the getYear() javascript function, and 2. poorly coded JavaScripts, I would be very grateful for the confirmation. I am no JavaScript programmer by any means, so this whole post could be way off base. I am only posting it so that some more experienced Java guru can either correct my mistakes or confirm and expand on what I'm seeing. Flames to /dev/null pls.