- ISO 8601 usage
On the
Internet , theWorld Wide Web Consortium (W3C) usesISO 8601 in defining a profile of the standard that restricts the supported date and time formats to reduce the chance of error and the complexity of software. [ [http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime Note about Date and Time Formats to W3C from Reuters] ]RFC 3339 defines a profile of ISO 8601 for the use in Internet protocols and standards. It explicitly excludes durations and dates before the
common era . The more complex formats like week numbers and ordinal day are not permitted. [RFC 3339, section 5.6]ISO 8601 is referenced by several specifications, but the full range of options of ISO 8601 is not always used. For example, the various
electronic program guide standards for TV, digital radio, etc. use several forms to describe points in time and durations. TheID3 audio meta-data specification also makes use of a subset of ISO 8601 (see [http://www.id3.org/id3v2.4.0-structure] , §4).The ISO 8601 week date, as of 2006, already appears in its basic form on major brand commercial packaging in the United States. Its appearance depends on the particular packaging, canning, or bottling plant more than any particular brand. The format is particularly useful for quality assurance, so that production errors can be readily traced to work weeks, and products can be correctly targeted for recall.
Related Standards
European Norm: EN 28601:1992
ee also
*
Date and time notation by country
*References
External links
* W3C
** Non-endorsed information
*** [http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime Note about Date and Time Formats to W3C from Reuters]
*** [http://www.w3.org/Submission/1997/14/Comment Comment by W3C on Reuters submission]
** Recommendations
*** [http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#dateTime dateTime data type in XML Schema] , which is based on a subset of ISO 8601
** QA Tips
*** http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/iso-date (not followed by the W3C itself, which uses lots of different formats on their websites)Initiatives
*http://www.ie.iwi.unibe.ch/services/initiativen/iso8601.php (German)
*http://www.saqqara.demon.co.uk/datefmt.htm
* [http://www.esperanto.uklinux.net/iso8601/iso8601.html "ISO 8601-compliant" button for websites]Implementation overview
* [http://www.qsl.net/g1smd/isoimp.htm ISO 8601 Implementation Around The World]
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