Date Format Gripe

R

Thread Starter

Ranjan Acharya

Dear List, Many of us write software programmes (or programs as the case may be) that use calendar dates. Please consider users overseas when you write such applications. I would suggest internally that your application use ISO 8601 format dates -- YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss (with optional T delimiter between the date and time) and that they then read appropriate regional settings or use configuration options for their displayed date. In case you think that this is nitpicky, we recently had an industrial automation package (software and hardware) that originated from an automation solutions supplier in Germany. One part of the package expressed dates in a fixed DD.MM.YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY format (the European format). Another part expressed dates in a fixed MM/DD/YYYY format (the American format). At this point, one wonders what 07/06/2001 means -- 07 June 2001 or 06 July 2001. Finally another portion of the package read configuration settings and was able to use YYYY-MM-DD. It was actually possible to print out things from the software portion that showed dates in two of the three possible formats. There was no way of changing this. With the international nature of our businesses, I think that this is an important goal to strive for. Also, when you buy a product from somewhere and the expiry date is 01/06/01 what does that mean? RJ
 
I whole heartedly agree with your date/time arguments. But then ,,,, how about the imperial vs. metric situation ? How many feet are there in a mile ?? Where did that number come from ?? It's certainly not something we'll resolve here. Mark Hill [email protected]
 
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> -----Original Message----- > From: Ranjan Acharya > > In case you think that this is nitpicky, we recently had an industrial > automation package (software and hardware) that originated from an > automation solutions supplier in Germany. One part of the > package expressed > dates in a fixed DD.MM.YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY format (the > European format). > Another part expressed dates in a fixed MM/DD/YYYY format > (the American > format). At this point, one wonders what 07/06/2001 means -- > 07 June 2001 or 06 July 2001. Actually, it can be even more fun. Living in Singapore for 11+ years means I often saw both formats. Try using Excel to import CSV with DD/MM/YYYY without telling Excel this. I had a customer doing this. Excel (at least at that time) would ASSUME 07/06/2001 means Jul-6, but since 25/11/2001 makes no sense, it assumed it was 25-Nov. So the resulting Excel file was nonsense with the dates imported as mixed - any date 13 or higher was correct, any date 12 or less was wrong/had day&month mixed. My preferred default UNTIL a user changes it is the DD-MMM-YYYY format like 6-Jul-2001. That can NEVER be mistaken. Also, the ISO 8601 format you mention YYYY-MM-DD is not easy to mistake but less familir to users (but it DOES sort very nicely!) regards - Lynn
 
C

Chiron Consulting

> Many of us write software programmes (or programs as the case may be) > that > use calendar dates. [snip] > Finally another portion of the package read > configuration settings and was able to use YYYY-MM-DD. personally, i like this date format best. it allows one to sort dated items using ascii collating sequence instead of having to have a date-specific sorter. greg
 
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