[microformats-discuss] Date design pattern (was re: Microformat for timestamp of updated content)

[Joe Gregorio]

On 8/19/05, Robert Bachmann <rbach at rbach.priv.at> wrote:
> [Subject changed because this discussion about date representations
> isn't specific to '(page-)last-modfied'.]
> 
> Joe Gregorio wrote:
> > RFC 3339 is, as Ted pointed out, a subset of ISO 8601.
> > But I think it's important to realize how varied ISO 8601
> > dates can be.
> >
> > The following are all valid ISO 8601 dates:
> >
> > 1997
> > 1997-07
> > 19970716
> > 1997-07-16 19:20+01:00
> > 1997-07-16T19:20+01:00
> > 2003-W14-2
> > 2003W142
> > 12:30:01
> > 19
> >
> > Care to guess what that last one represents?
> 
> 2019?

The 20th century.

> 
> > OTOH, RFC 3339 is strict, only the following forms are allowed
> >
> > \d\d\d\d-\d\d-\d\dT\d\d:\d\d:\d\d(\.\d*)?Z
> >
> > or
> >
> > \d\d\d\d-\d\d-\d\dT\d\d:\d\d:\d\d(\.\d*)?(\+|-)\d\d:\d\d
> >
> I think that using a subset of ISO8601 makes 'things' (parsing,
> validating, etc.) easier but I don't think that RFC 3339 is expedient
> because it requires to include a TIME portion.
> 
> Althought all wiki pages I've seen included a TIME portion, I've also
> seen web pages which did not include a TIME portion within their 'Last
> modfied on ' phrases.
> 
> There are also use cases for hCard and hCalendar elements which do not
> require to have a TIME portion.

Agreed.

   -joe

-- 
Joe Gregorio        http://bitworking.org