Patent ID: 7613725

Claim:
A method for assisting input of a date in a data processing system, wherein the data processing system performs the steps of: storing a pre-specified data in a storage device as a reference date; in response to a user's input of a first digit sequence of one or more digits in a date field displayed on a display device by business computer programs, storing the input first digit sequence in the storage device; calculating a number of digits n of the input first digit sequence, and comparing said number of digits n with the number of digits m in the date field; generating a first candidate date by complementing the input first digit sequence with a second digit sequence generated on the basis of the reference date when the calculated number of digits n of the first digit sequence is smaller than the number of digits m in the date field; incrementing a first value at the (m−n) th digit of the input first digit sequence representing the first candidate date until said first candidate date becomes after the reference date when the first candidate date is before the reference date; acquiring a third digit sequence representing the reference date from the storage device; extracting a fourth digit sequence of a number of digits, equivalent to a second value obtained by subtracting the number of digits n of the input first digit sequence from the number of digit m in the date field, from the third digit sequence representing the reference date; generating a second candidate date by concatenating the extracted fourth digit sequence to the input first digit sequence; displaying the generated first and second candidate dates on the display device.