Standard way to express a date in a real number?

[Steven Taschuk]

Quoth John Roth:
> "Alex Martelli" <aleax at aleax.it> wrote in message
> news:9t8na.27736$T34.825154 at news2.tin.it...
  [...]
> > In Python 2.3, module datetime may serve your needs:
> >
> > >>> datetime.date(2303,4,16).toordinal()
> > 840893
> > >>> datetime.date(1303,4,16).toordinal()
> > 475651
> 
> Unfortunately, this appears to be based off of 1AD or
> some such. I usually want 4712BC as the base - in other
> words, the astronomical Julian date.

So fix it:

    >>> _epoch = datetime.date(-4711, 1, 1)
    >>> def date2ordinal(date):
    ...     return date.toordinal() - _epoch.toordinal()

-- 
Steven Taschuk                             staschuk at telusplanet.net
"I may be wrong but I'm positive."  -- _Friday_, Robert A. Heinlein