Re: Getting sysdate across a DB link

On 01/26/2004 01:34:24 PM, "Mercadante, Thomas F" wrote:
> Ashish,
>
> Why do you think that the dates would be different on the two
> machines
> - is
> one across the international date line? Shouldn't the dates be the
> same?

Thomas, if we learned anything from Einstein, it is that the time is relative to the observer and depends on the curvature of the space, speed and alike. This is particularly easy to prove when it comes to computers, because very seldomly do two computers have exactly the same time. As you are probably very well aware of, the central theorem of the relativity theory reads as follows: "The duration of a second depends on which side of the restroom door is the observer."

Unfortunately, taking one server as a reference doesn't help because even if it is decreed that everybody should invoke the get_date function from the central server, there will be a developer who will smuggle a sysdate into the code. I've seen machines 5" apart differing in time for more then a hour. It becomes especially interesting on the days when DST takes effect. To make the long story short, Thomas, your Newtonian world is obsolete.

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