Date and time
Mother's birthday? No need (or, at least, there shouldn't be!) even to specify the date. There's no possibility of confusion either when the date is spelled out (for example, 25 January 2006). Dates, however, are frequently given in purely numeric form, particularly in electronic data exchange. That's not usually a problem within a country, because there will be a shared convention - or generally accepted standard - about whether the figure representing the day or the month comes first. But in international exchanges, the sender and receiver may not share the same standard for writing dates. In the USA, for example, the figure representing the month comes first, followed by the day, while in Europe, it is the reverse. And that leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding, which can lead to disruption and uneccessary costs in business dealings - not to say tears when a card or present fails to arrive on the right day.
In an international environment the date of an event should not be given in a notation like 4/5. Would that be April the fifth or the fourth of May? It is always better to spell out the name of the month in any dates than to use a shorter notation."
However, there are numerous businesses where it is more convenient to indicate the date in numeric form. And, fortunately, there is an International Standard for date formats. By using ISO 8601:2004, you can eliminate ambiguities and misinterpretations over dates - and the resulting costs and disruptions to your business.
DATE
How do you represent the first day of May in 2006?
ISO standard: 2006-05-01
Always from the largest to smallest element: year, month, day, hour, minute, second.
DATE + HOUR + MINUTE + SECOND
How do you represent 2 May 2006, 23 hours, 20 minutes and 50 seconds?
ISO standard: 2006-05-02T23:20:50
NUMBERING OF WEEKS AND DAYS
How do you represent the first day of the fifteenth week of 2006?
ISO standard: 2006-W15-1
The week date is used in many commercial and industrial applications. Monday has been agreed as the most appropriate first day of the week.
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