[F&O] Underflow in date arithmetic

In section 9.1.1 (Limits and precision), F&O says:

"A processor that limits the number of digits in date and time datatype
representations may encounter overflow and underflow conditions when it
tries to execute the functions in 9.7 Adding and Subtracting Durations From
dateTime, date and time. In these situations, the processor .must. return
zero in case of underflow and .must. raise an error [overflow in date/time
arithmetic] in case of overflow."
 
The last sentence seems to imply that the return value for the functions
should be a numeric value 0 in the case of underflow. But this seems
strange, since none of the functions/operators described in that section
return numeric values in any other case.  I would think you would want just
the part of the time or duration that is causing underflow (e.g. the number
of seconds) to be treated as zero.  
 
Thanks,
Priscilla Walmsley

Received on Wednesday, 4 February 2004 07:47:05 UTC