After Y2K, brace for leap year glitch

Now computers must be "leap year compliant."

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) urged the public yesterday to check if the dates in their computers will automatically roll over from Feb. 28 to 29.

Before the so-called "Y2K bug" caught the world's attention, experts predicted that computer systems that would read the year 2000 as 1900 would be able to count only 28 days of this month, notwithstanding that 1900 was a leap year like the year 2000.

In the Christian calendar, any year that is divisible evenly by four is a leap year.

When "non-leap year compliant" systems skip Feb. 29, they may cause confusion in date-sensitive data like sales ledgers, sorting of accounts, expired and overdue status, time clocks, spreadsheet and database date formats using two digits.

Experts said the bureaucracy should watch out for aging software, including customized payroll and accounts, loan data, analysis, taxation, and forecasting.

Recent reports, mostly from the United States, said that analysts are apprehensive that as high as 80 to 90 percent of "Y2K"-related problems might show up in the coming weeks as governments and businesses worldwide ease up to normal operations.

But the DOST expects the leap year roll over to create only a "mild shake" in the country's computer-dependent sectors.

Gerardo Doroja, a DOST deputy director, explained that technical remedial work done among the country's critical sectors, particularly the core 391 government and private organizations, stretched to the leap year roll over.

"Technically, there is no reason to worry even if 2000 is a leap year ... since very few computers will fail to reckon that the year 2000 is a leap year," he said.

He said the Philippine Y2K Readiness Act requires that "data based functionality" must be consistent for dates before, during and after the year 2000.

As for personal computers, their operating systems "would nudge or instruct real time clock installed in PCs to follow correct century digits," resulting in automatic century digit correction, he added.

Doroja said most computers and automated control systems are designed to handle only two-digit year formats that could possibly result in errors or malfunctions when "00" appears on the date field.