[Koha-devel] Re: non-simple publication years?

[news-misc]

In article <address@hidden>, Francisco
M. Marzoa Alonso <address@hidden> wrote:

>I think that's a matter of representation, so database
>structure could be as is (with that sort integer) and scripts
>could be modified to support different dating standards simply
>making conversions. Although I think this does need change some
>scripts, not just templates, because as it seems to be your
>case, sometimes the matter is an input value on a form.
>
>The same is applicable to date formats on different countries
>or using different standards. (i.e. some countries use
>DD-MM-AAAA while others use MM-DD-AAAA). I think there may be
>some kind of support for this in koha so it should be not very
>difficult to adapt it for your chinesse years, but I'm not
>sure.

I guess then this would be something for Koha 3.0 :-)

In our library not all dates are in "Chinese" format ("Republic"
years, now used only in the ROC); we only lists the Republic
dates if the book lists them.

I wondered whether this is just a peculiarity
of our library, so I went to another library
(http://mdx.tpml.edu.tw/v2.3/tables/01a.htm) and see how they
do it. They do it just the same; not all books are listed in
Republic dates, just some (presumably also just the books which
lists dates in this format).

So, sticking with the principle that Koha should not dictate how
users use the system, we cannot go the conversion route :-)

Also, if we go a conversion route, it will also be quite
complicated, because one A.D. year may correspond to two or
more years in the "foreign" calendar. (For example, the Chinese
and Japanese dates are based on the reign of kings, and the
king has the say what the new epoch is called (so we can never
"future-proof" Koha if we go the conversion route); so one A.D.
year can correspond to two Japanese years if, e.g., they get a
new Japanese emperor :-) It could get messier if the foreign
calendar system is not solar :-( [not the case with modern
Chinese and Japanese dates, though]


-- 
Ambrose Li  <address@hidden>
http://ada.dhs.org/~acli/cmcc/  http://www.cccgt.org/

DRM is theft - We are the stakeholders