Bug 69102 - Switching from Jullian to Gregorian did not happen the same date for all countries
Summary: Switching from Jullian to Gregorian did not happen the same date for all coun...
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Alias: None
Product: kdelibs
Classification: Frameworks and Libraries
Component: kdecore (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Compiled Sources Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: John Layt
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2003-11-26 21:25 UTC by Stefanos Harhalakis
Modified: 2010-01-23 19:03 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Description Stefanos Harhalakis 2003-11-26 21:25:46 UTC
Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.1.93)
Installed from:    Compiled From Sources

Dates did not switch at 3 Sep 1752 for all countries... This results in wrong dates for some countries...

Using 'ncal -p' you can find the dates when this change happened for each country:
$ ncal -p
 AL Albania        1912-11-30      IT Italy          1582-10-04
 AT Austria        1583-10-05      JP Japan          1918-12-18
 AU Australia      1752-09-02      LI Lithuania      1918-02-01
 BE Belgium        1582-12-14      LN Latin          9999-05-31
 BG Bulgaria       1916-03-18      LU Luxembourg     1582-12-14
 CA Canada         1752-09-02      LV Latvia         1918-02-01
 CH Switzerland    1655-02-28      NL Netherlands    1582-12-14
 CN China          1911-12-18      NO Norway         1700-02-18
 CZ Czech Republic 1584-01-06      PL Poland         1582-10-04
 DE Germany        1700-02-18      PT Portugal       1582-10-04
 DK Denmark        1700-02-18      RO Romania        1919-03-31
 ES Spain          1582-10-04      RU Russia         1918-01-31
 FI Finland        1753-02-17      SI Slovenia       1919-03-04
 FR France         1582-12-09      SE Sweden         1753-02-17
 GB United Kingdom 1752-09-02      TR Turkey         1926-12-18
 GR Greece         1924-03-09     *US United States  1752-09-02
 HU Hungary        1587-10-21      YU Yugoslavia     1919-03-04
 IS Iceland        1700-11-16

Thus for Greece, 10 Mar 1924 never existed but kde callendar displays this date as beeing Monday... The true Mar 1924 for Greece was:

$ ncal -s GR 03 1924
    March 1924
Mo     4 24 31
Tu     5 25
We     6 26
Th     7 27
Fr  1  8 28
Sa  2  9 29
Su  3 23 30

This means that all dates before Mar 1924 are incorrect. Same thing for all other countries..

I don't know if this should be reported as a bug but since it is a minor issue I'm reporting it as a wish... 

I believe that this is not clock applet specific so please reassign this to the appropriate person...

TIA

<<V13>>
Comment 1 Stephan Kulow 2003-11-26 21:41:22 UTC
do you know of _any_ calendar that cares about that aspect? :)
Comment 2 Stefanos Harhalakis 2003-11-26 21:59:54 UTC
Subject: Re:  Switching from Jullian to Gregorian did not happen the same date for all countries

On Wednesday 26 November 2003 22:41, Stephan Kulow wrote:
> ------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
> You reported the bug, or are watching the reporter.
>
> http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69102
>
>
>
>
> ------- Additional Comments From coolo@kde.org  2003-11-26 21:41 -------
> do you know of _any_ calendar that cares about that aspect? :)

ncal (It seems to be the cal from freebsd but it exists in some distributions 
including debian)

<<V13>>

Comment 3 Stephan Kulow 2003-11-26 22:06:07 UTC
I meant a GUI calendar, not a tool that is made to calc any academical date.
Comment 4 John Layt 2008-10-16 22:08:36 UTC
This is a debate I been back and forth on a few times :-) On the one hand users should be able to see what the dates really were when they are doing historical related work.  On the other hand any scientific or financial applications probably require consistency and accuracy.  How do we know in advance what the user wants?  Basically it is up to the app to decide and to implement the required model.

I would like to implement this in KDE4 using a new KLocale variable and changing our Gregorian calendar class to pay attention to it, but a big issue arises with compatibility with QDate which only has a fixed conversion date.  While in theory it shouldn't be an issue as KDE apps should always use the global KCalendarSystem for calculations, in reality some inconsistent programming inside an app mixing KCalendarSystem and QDate could easily lead to mistakes creeping in.

And then you get the countries where different states and regions converted at different dates.  

And what about somewhere like China or Japan where the conversion date wasn't from Julian to Gregorian but from the local calendar system to Gregorian?  My eventual conclusion was that this would be something for KDE5 :-)

Assign to me to give it some more thought, and to revisit the kcd list debate we had last time this was raised, but I'm likely to close it.
Comment 5 Vikram Dhillon 2010-01-22 05:40:09 UTC
AFAIK, the ncal command displays a nice calendar and works fine for this year, and the one before it :) so this one's really not an issue. Therefore marking it invalid. Thanks.
Comment 6 Stefanos Harhalakis 2010-01-23 12:29:03 UTC
No it doesn't! Look at March :-)

$ ncal -s GR 1924 
                                  1924
    January           February          March             April
Mo  1  8 15 22 29        5 12 19 26        4 24 31           7 14 21 28
Tu  2  9 16 23 30        6 13 20 27        5 25           1  8 15 22 29
We  3 10 17 24 31        7 14 21 28        6 26           2  9 16 23 30
Th  4 11 18 25        1  8 15 22 29        7 27           3 10 17 24
Fr  5 12 19 26        2  9 16 23        1  8 28           4 11 18 25
Sa  6 13 20 27        3 10 17 24        2  9 29           5 12 19 26
Su  7 14 21 28        4 11 18 25        3 23 30           6 13 20 27
    May               June              July              August
Mo     5 12 19 26        2  9 16 23 30     7 14 21 28        4 11 18 25
Tu     6 13 20 27        3 10 17 24     1  8 15 22 29        5 12 19 26
We     7 14 21 28        4 11 18 25     2  9 16 23 30        6 13 20 27
Th  1  8 15 22 29        5 12 19 26     3 10 17 24 31        7 14 21 28
Fr  2  9 16 23 30        6 13 20 27     4 11 18 25        1  8 15 22 29
Sa  3 10 17 24 31        7 14 21 28     5 12 19 26        2  9 16 23 30
Su  4 11 18 25        1  8 15 22 29     6 13 20 27        3 10 17 24 31
    September         October           November          December
Mo  1  8 15 22 29        6 13 20 27        3 10 17 24     1  8 15 22 29
Tu  2  9 16 23 30        7 14 21 28        4 11 18 25     2  9 16 23 30
We  3 10 17 24        1  8 15 22 29        5 12 19 26     3 10 17 24 31
Th  4 11 18 25        2  9 16 23 30        6 13 20 27     4 11 18 25
Fr  5 12 19 26        3 10 17 24 31        7 14 21 28     5 12 19 26
Sa  6 13 20 27        4 11 18 25        1  8 15 22 29     6 13 20 27
Su  7 14 21 28        5 12 19 26        2  9 16 23 30     7 14 21 28

Of course this happens for other countries too. Look at September:

$ ncal -s US 1752
                                  1752
    January           February          March             April
Mo     6 13 20 27        3 10 17 24        2  9 16 23 30     6 13 20 27
Tu     7 14 21 28        4 11 18 25        3 10 17 24 31     7 14 21 28
We  1  8 15 22 29        5 12 19 26        4 11 18 25     1  8 15 22 29
Th  2  9 16 23 30        6 13 20 27        5 12 19 26     2  9 16 23 30
Fr  3 10 17 24 31        7 14 21 28        6 13 20 27     3 10 17 24
Sa  4 11 18 25        1  8 15 22 29        7 14 21 28     4 11 18 25
Su  5 12 19 26        2  9 16 23        1  8 15 22 29     5 12 19 26
    May               June              July              August
Mo     4 11 18 25     1  8 15 22 29        6 13 20 27        3 10 17 24 31
Tu     5 12 19 26     2  9 16 23 30        7 14 21 28        4 11 18 25
We     6 13 20 27     3 10 17 24        1  8 15 22 29        5 12 19 26
Th     7 14 21 28     4 11 18 25        2  9 16 23 30        6 13 20 27
Fr  1  8 15 22 29     5 12 19 26        3 10 17 24 31        7 14 21 28
Sa  2  9 16 23 30     6 13 20 27        4 11 18 25        1  8 15 22 29
Su  3 10 17 24 31     7 14 21 28        5 12 19 26        2  9 16 23 30
    September         October           November          December
Mo    18 25              2  9 16 23 30     6 13 20 27        4 11 18 25
Tu  1 19 26              3 10 17 24 31     7 14 21 28        5 12 19 26
We  2 20 27              4 11 18 25     1  8 15 22 29        6 13 20 27
Th 14 21 28              5 12 19 26     2  9 16 23 30        7 14 21 28
Fr 15 22 29              6 13 20 27     3 10 17 24        1  8 15 22 29
Sa 16 23 30              7 14 21 28     4 11 18 25        2  9 16 23 30
Su 17 24              1  8 15 22 29     5 12 19 26        3 10 17 24 31

Don't close this as INVALID! I find WONTFIX acceptable (after all, this is a really minor perfectionism thing), but INVALID is... er... INVALID :-)
Comment 7 Vikram Dhillon 2010-01-23 19:03:46 UTC
@ Stefanos Harhalakis:
You are right :) sorry about that. Wanted to click on that but my browser is did something weird. Since the problem persists in the time that isn't relevant to us at the moment, it doesn't make much sense to me to spend resources on this one. So closing it as won't fix :)