[CF-metadata] New standard name: datetime_iso8601

From: John Caron <caron>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:51:54 -0600

On 3/20/2013 9:41 AM, David Hassell wrote:
> Hello,
>
> My beer/coffee/perocet levels are too low to want to comment broadly on
> this, so I'll just make one comment ...
>
>> Really the main advantage is that data writers are less likely to
>> make a mistake specifying
>>
>> 1952-08-15T00:00:00Z
>>
>> than
>>
>> 2434567 days since -4713-01-01T00:00:00Z.
> I'm not sure why the later would be any more prone to mistakes than
> the former. Surely the conversion of
>
> <time-as-stored-in-whatever-arcane-format-files-my-model-spits-out>
>
> to
>
> '2434567 days since -4713-01-01T00:00:00Z'
>
> would be handled by a software library, just as would the conversion
> of
>
> <time-as-stored-in-whatever-arcane-format-files-my-model-spits-out>
>
> to
>
> '1952-08-15T00:00:00Z'
>
> and its fair to assume, I think, that such libraries will do the right
> thing.

I guess the point is that its not always fair to assume that, and the
user wont know when it fails, esp for

'2434567 days since -4713-01-01T00:00:00Z'

unless she also computes

'1952-08-15T00:00:00Z'

which presumably she could do as a double check.


Which library would you use? Does it work for non-standard calendars?

How about if everyone who'g got nothing better to do try it out in the
library of their choice and report the results?

John
Received on Wed Mar 20 2013 - 09:51:54 GMT