Date and time representation by country

  • Year month day
  • Year month day and day month year
  • Day month year
  • Day Month Year and Month Day Year
  • Month Day Year
  • Year, month, day, day of month, year and month day year

A date format is the form in which a calendar date is shown in writing. The date format specifies

  • Order in which the components of the calendar date ( year, month, day ) are called
  • Whether, and if so, what delimiter to be inserted between the components of the calendar date.

Background

To display the date very different versions worldwide are established, which are incompatible with each other to some extent. This is reflected in the fact that the same may be entered in different representations for a different date.

For example, can the dates 01/02/03 interpreted as:

The interpretation of a date this form therefore differs from country to country, so depends on the context and is therefore unsuitable for a globally uniform and reversible unique representation.

This circumstance was exacerbated significantly by the turn of the millennium. Dates before it could be much more reliably interpret: the often usual abbreviated notation of the year ( ie without the hundreds and thousands digit ) was meaningless before the turn of the millennium de facto, (apart from the "loss" of the century ).

On days after the 12th of each month was also excluded this ambiguity, since there is ( in the Gregorian calendar), no month 13.

  • 15/02/60 was clearly February 15, 1960

With full spelling of the year number, the uniqueness also increased significantly today: 03/02/2001

Only since 2013, the year of confusion is once again banned ↔ month, and until the year 2032, the uniqueness year number will be given again.

Uniqueness and internationalization

The uniqueness of the date can be achieved by specifying the month name in written out or abbreviated form, and by the four -digit year value. Such dates can be interpreted correctly, regardless of where the day, month or year should be provided:

  • January 7, 2003
  • 7 janvier 2003
  • 7 de enero de 2003
  • 2003ko urtarrila 7 a
  • January 7, 2003

All these spellings clearly indicate the same date. To understand it, only basic knowledge of the language is required, in which the date is written. It requires no knowledge of special conventions for dates. A date in a document of a given language can be interpreted relatively easily in this notation usually. In a pinch, the month names with the help of a dictionary can be determined even if one does not speak the language, but I know which language it is. However, there are also cases in which a date is isolated, so it is not embedded in a context that suggests a particular language. This month values ​​for the non-speech Lore may not be clearly identifiable. On what month, for example, the statement " 11 août 2001 " refers to a non- French Lore remains hidden if necessary, inasmuch as he can not recognize that the month is given in French. The same applies in particular to information on rare or exotic languages ​​, such as the above fourth example in Basque. This shows the benefits derived from an international standardized time stamp that is not tied to a specific language.

Standardization

Following the German-speaking applicable standards of national and international standards organizations (ISO, EN and DIN standards ) deal with the date format:

  • International Standard ISO 8601:2004-12 Data Data elements and interchange formats - Information interchange - Representation of dates and times Since September 2006, over the same content as ISO 8,601th

ISO 8601 defines a basic structure for the exchange of date and time information as well, which consists solely of numeric components and waives language-specific identifiers (words). For the uniqueness of numerical dates strict adherence to a predetermined shape is essential. An essential feature of the 8601 specified in ISO basic structure is the " descending " order in the form year-month- day.

  • 2003-01-07

Alphanumeric dates, as information with ausgeschriebenem month names are not part of the ISO 8601 These dates will continue to be governed by national standards, such as DIN 5008 The there is recommended alphanumeric notation.. :

  • January 7, 2003

Whether the one or the other variant is used depends largely on the environment in which it will be used. In a multinational and multilingual context, the ISO compliant version is recommended, while in a monolingual environment easily an alphanumeric version can be used without affecting the clarity or comprehensibility.

ISO 8601 and EN 28601

In the standard ISO 8601 of 1988 was an attempt to unify the different national date formats. The result was a date format with " Descending " arrangement ( year-month- day) with center lines as separators, which meant to replace the hitherto widely disseminated date formats with " ascending " arrangement ( day-month- year).

The ISO 8601 was taken over in 1992 without changes in EN 28601:1992, which is binding for most European countries according to the Rules of Procedure of the CEN / CENELEC, as well as for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In December 2004, the new ISO 8601 took over from these standards. In addition, the standard has been incorporated 5008 ( writing and design rules for text processing ) in the German Standard DIN.

The new order was meant as logical approximation to the usually also " Descending " arrangement in our times ( hour-minute- second). In addition to the international standardization of the numeric format and independence from one language to the " Descending " arrangement facilitates the correct sorting in lexicographic applications and in the computer. Thus, the " Descending " arrangement simplifies the search for entries or files of a particular date. Other advantages are:

  • Improved by the " descending " format option, the complete dates for purposes of filing and classification as normal, long decimal number to treat (highest point on the left, the lowest point on the right);
  • The ( given at each numerical format) ability to perform arithmetic calculations in computer applications;
  • Improved by the " descending " format option the logical continuation of the order by adding the digits for hour, minute and second.

A disadvantage of the ISO 8601 standards can be argued that the " descending " order ( year-month- day) the hitherto common practice in many European languages ​​contradicts ( with some exceptions such as Austria, Hungary, Slovenia). Along with Germany, for example, in French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Swedish, Danish and Turkish, the " Ascending " arrangement (day -month-year ) are common. Therefore, the new date format with its " descending " is arrangement for the user to get used to and little has enforced in practice.

Dictionary of German Spelling

The date is located - in the indication of the day and the month - so-called ordinal numbers: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 25th, etc. (pronounced: first, second, etc. ); that is, the / the digit / s followed by a dot, because the date indicating the order within a calendar order. A hyphen is - as specified in DIN 5008 - out of place. § 104 of the official rules for the German spelling, to which also the draft of DIN 5008 expressly refers, provides the point for the identification of ordinals.

A leading zero for dates is also not ordinal to agree with the term '. There is no 06 day. The leading zero was introduced decades ago, because it was introduced to ensure that dates when writing with the machine both in single and in double-digit day and year figures have been arranged flush with each other. It also prevents later a digit can be in front of it to falsify dates ( and the date to 10, 20 or 30 days to move backwards). It fits at best for forms that provide fields for a two -digit entry. So Wrong is a representation as: . 06th June 2001 Properly says: 6.6.2001 or 6th June 2001.

DIN 5008

The German standard DIN 5008 defines writing and design rules for text processing, which include the guidelines for the date format. For numeric date information in addition valid for Germany EN 28601 is the 1992 application.

In the edition of 1996 ( via the EN 28601 ) the "new " from the ISO 8601 derived format was adopted as the only correct numeric date notation. Permitted was next to only the " alphanumeric letters " with the advertised name of the month and without a preceding "0" digit in number of days.

However, the new date format according to ISO standard ( year-month- day) collided with the actual writing habits, and could not prevail in the years 1996-2000. As in most other European countries, the standard has been largely ignored in Germany and Austria, where generally remained the usual format TT.MM. [ YY ] YY in use. In the 2001 edition of DIN 5008 then a note was added, after which the usual format should be permitted again, " provided that no misunderstandings ."

Time billing information "v. BC "and" AD BC "

The previously in force in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and still largely applied standard DIN 1355-1 (see DIN -Taschenbuch 102 of 1989) provided for the indication BC and AD to year values ​​before and after starting of the Christian era to differentiate. In the European standard EN 28601 1992 is, however, not be discussed on a date before or after Christ. In the version of 2000, the ISO sees 8601 rather even a year zero and year values ​​with a negative sign in front, which, notwithstanding retroactively its switching method is to be applied by the generally accepted use, even for the period before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.

Context (language use) Convention (norm) Basque language List of International Organization for Standardization standards Datum
220595
de