[uf-discuss] Re: hAtom in Wordpress or Php: Iso 8601 timestamp

[Toby A Inkster]

Scott Reynen wrote:
> Lorenzo De Tomasi wrote:
> 
>> But now the question is which is the correct ISO 8601 timestamp?
>> 2008-01-29T11:42:00+01:00 or 2008-01-29T11:42:00+0100?
> 
> Both are valid per ISO 8601.

True. But it is worth remembering that ISO 8601 encompases a whole range 
of different datetime formats. The datetime as I write this paragraph 
could be recorded variously as:

	2008-03-08T19:03:12.000000+00:00
	20080308T190312Z
	2008-W10-6T190312+0000
	2008W106T190312.000+0000
	2008-068T190312.0Z
	2008068T19:03:12Z

Most applications do not want to have to parse so many different datetime 
formats, so specify a subset ("profile") of ISO8601 which they support.

The datetime design pattern states that microformats SHOULD use a profile 
of ISO8601 to use, and that profile SHOULD be RFC 3339 and/or W3CDTF, 
neither of which support the colon-free UTC offset. 

Of course, to be annoying, none of the microformats which actually make 
use of the datetime design pattern (hCalendar, hCard, hAtom, hReview) 
actionally *do* specify which profile of ISO8601 to use, implying that you 
can basically choose your favourite ISO8601 date format and use that. 
2008W106T190312.000+0000, here I come!

In fact, hCard and hReview don't even normatively reference ISO8601, so 
theoretically <span class="bday">First of June 1980</span> should be 
allowed, though that's just being plain cruel to parsers!

-- 
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.17.14-mm-desktop-9mdvsmp, up 39 days, 1:16.]

                               Bottled Water
          http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2008/02/18/bottled-water/