Function Provides Another Way to Determine Leap Years

In the Snippets to Go article "LeapYear Function Might Have You Leaping for Joy" (February 2006, InstantDoc ID 48663), Jim Turner created the LeapYear function to determine whether a specified year is a leap year. As Listing 1 shows, I also created a function called IsLeapYear to determine leap years.

The IsLeapYear function is based on information provided by Bo Eschricht in "A More Elegant Approach for Determining Leap Years" (Scripting Central, http://www.windowsitpro.com/windows/article/articleid/
49046/49046.html). As Bo pointed out, you can determine a leap year by dividing the year by 400 if it's a centennial year (e.g., 2000, 3000) or by 4 if it's a noncentennial year (e.g., 2007, 2008). If the year divides evenly (i.e., no remainder), it's a leap year. Otherwise, it's a nonleap year.

Listing 2 demonstrates how you can use the IsLeapYear function in a script. You simply use the intYear variable to pass in the year you want to test, as callout A in Listing 2 shows. When you run the script, a message box appears telling you whether or not that year is a leap year.

—Olli Krollmann