This variable sets the base date to be used for Julian date calculations. It is used in conjunction with the DATE directive.
To define your own base date for Julian dates, set this variable to a date having the format YYYYMMDD.
The default value is set internally at 01/01/4713 BC. (Dates other than the default must be greater than 01/02/4713 BC.)
For example, suppose your COBOL program uses dates in the form of the number of days since 12/31/1899. If you want to store these dates in a database accessed by Acu4GL, you can set your DATE directives to be $XFD DATE=JJJJJJ (make sure that the number of characters matches your date field). Then you should set the runtime configuration variable 4GL-JULIAN-BASE-DATE to 18991231.
If you are using the Runtime intrinsic functions that work with Julian dates, you should set the 4GL-JULIAN-BASE-DATE variable to December 31, 1600 using the Gregorian calendar.