Re: ISO 8601 anyone??

[Eduardo Gutentag <eduardo.gutentag@eng.sun.com>]

Ian Galpin wrote:
> 
> On 2001-Apr-15 Eduardo Gutentag <Eduardo.Gutentag@eng.sun.com> wrote in
> <ebXML-core>:
> 
> >>> May I ask a question? Why are we all using different date formats like
> >>> D-M-Y and M-D-Y  when XML in general specifies only  Year-Month-Day
> 
> > That's an interesting assertion. Could you please send a pointer to where
> > XML specifies such a thing? Or are you perhaps referring to a TLW other
> > than XML?
> 
> [2001-Apr-16]
> 
> In  <http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/>:
> 
> >  XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes
> >  W3C Proposed Recommendation  2001 March 30
> 
> the ISO 8601 standard is shown as the only defined date and time format.

Ian, that was a tongue-in-cheek question, to attract your attention to the
fact that http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2 IS NOT the same as 
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml, and that therefore your statement that "XML specifies"
was not quite correct.


> 
> It also turns up in the:
> 
> >  Dublin Core Metadata Initiative <http://purl.oclc.org/dc/> and
> >  <http://purl.oclc.org/dc/documents/rec-dces-19990702.htm>.
> 
> and in many other W3C documents.
> 
> If we are going to use it (ISO 8601, that is) in our data, then why not
> start using it right now, in our email, as well? If you're going to have a
> seminar starting on '05/10/01' then the Europeans are going to turn up in
> October, the US boys will be hammering on your door in mid July, and the
> Japanese delegation will be over towards the end of the year 2005. Isn't
> that the whole point of having International Standards?
> 
> Many W3C recommendations now incorporate or reference the ISO 8601 standard.
> The place that it all may have started was in the note:
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime>.
> 
> See  <http://www.qsl.net/g1smd/isoimp.htm> for the beginnings of a list of
> participating countries for ISO 8601. China got missed off. It is defined in
> the GB/T 7408-94 standard over there.
> 
> We are discussing defining the formats for data, for global acceptance and
> unambiguity, but not bothering to use these formats ourselves. Most odd.
> 
> Some parts of NASA (for example <http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/> is one I
> noticed) have decided to standardise on Year-Month-Day for everything. Thay
> also use 24-hour format time, and normalise all data to the UTC Time Zone.
> For Dates, shown on the Web Site, they use a selection of:
>   2001-04-16  (or 2001/04/16)
>   2001-04
>   20010416
>   2001-Apr-16
>   2001-Apr
>   2001-April-16
>   2001-April
> and so on. Although this isn't XML, it shows a commitment to providing World
> Readable unambiguous data, instead of the bad old days of '03/02/01' type
> formats still seen in far too many places.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Ian.
> 
> <g1smd@freeuk.com>
> 
> [2001-04-16]
> 
> .end
> 
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-- 
Eduardo Gutentag               |         e-mail: eduardo@eng.Sun.COM
XML Technology Center          |         Phone:  (650) 786-5498
Sun Microsystems Inc.          |         fax:    (650) 786-5727