Re: Standards checkers for XSLT

I don't mean to contradict and there might be valid reasons in your
application for using the short-hand date format 
YYYY-MM-DD instead of
CCYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+Z but, there are a few more advantages of using the
composite date format that also includes
time instead of just the date.

For
example, it's more straightforward to calculate the *duration* between two
dateTimes when the dates are represented in full format. 

The time-zone is
optional, so if you represent it as CCYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS it assumes the
implicit time-zone of the server combined with daylight savings.

I think if
your application is going to be complex with many possible scenarios then I
would consider using the full format, 
but if your application tends to be
small and doesn't deal with event math or dateTimes then the shorter version
of dateTime seems fine. 

But thinking in terms of making the application as
change-proof and future-proof as possible (to be able to easily handle all
possible future situations with as little or no change to the original design)
, I would use the full date format.

In either case there are functions in
XPath2.0 which allow you to combine dates or break them up in any way, which
makes it flexible to use any date format.

----- Original Message ----
From:
Kamal Bhatt <kbhatt@xxxxxxxxx>
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent:
Sunday, November 26, 2006 7:04:16 PM
Subject: Re:  Standards checkers for
XSLT


Rashmi Rubdi wrote:
> Using a common and standard convention for
representing dates helps significantly when manipulating date fields.
>
> The
standard format is 
> CCYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+Z
>
> Example:
>
2004-10-01T18:23:17+00:00
>
> With this representation it's easier and
manageable to sort date fields because it's a sortable value unlike a date
represented in say MM/DD/YYYY format.
>
> While displaying dates the XPath2.0
format-date function can be used to display the date in a particular locale.
>
> There might be other benefits like add and subtract dates, but I haven't
refered these functions.
>
>   
I think we use YYYY-MM-DD (we don't handle
timezones), but thanks for 
the tip.


-- 
Kamal Bhatt
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