Hello everybody!   
      
   I was talking with a friend/co-worker about the date format issue with MBSE,    
   and he asked if we could just use standard strftime formats.  This seems like    
   an idea that would reduce much of the complication involved with this change.   
      
   The changes to records would be a small string (6 bytes?) for the default    
   system format, and the same for user preferences.   
      
   Display changes would be very simple, since they could just use strftime to    
   format the date display.   
      
   The GetDate function in mbsebbs/input.c would need to need to understand the    
   strftime format (or a reduced/simplified subset that includes %Y, %m, and %d),    
   and adjust the handling of user import accordingly.   
      
   The language files currently have the date format hardcoded for the prompts to    
   enter dates for "Date of Birth" and for entering a date when searching files.    
   These will need to be more flexible.  Perhaps something similar to what is    
   needed for GetDate will work for templating the date format in the language    
   files.   
      
   Along with these changes is having MBSE use a time_t rather than a string when    
   possible so we can get rid of code (only two places that I can think of at the    
   moment) that manipulates a date string into a YYYYMMDD format before turning    
   it into an integer for comparison and sorting.   
      
   Ken   
      
      
   --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20160827 - MBSE BBS - Debian GNU/Linux   
    * Origin: The Realm of Darkness |(623)907-2858| bbs.trod.org (1:114/485)