Thread: What is Your Preferred Date Format?

I like to have dates as DD/MM/YY, as you can see from my website:

Dates

I always put dates as DD/MM/YY unless otherwise stated. If you don't like this for some reason, then run the web pages through this perl script before you view them:

Code:

while(<>){s|(\d\d)/(\d\d)/(\d\d)|$2/$1/$3|g;print}

or

Code:

perl -pe "s|(\d\d)/(\d\d)/(\d\d)|$2/$1/$3|g"

It swaps the first two parts of a date, converting DD/MM/YY to MM/DD/YY and vise versa.

I really don't like MM/DD/YY. It simply doesn't make sense, as someone has already said -- a day is a smaller unit of measurement than a month. But I have to deal with MM/DD/YY a lot, so I guess I'm used to it. "A body can get used to anything . . ."

Again, if the date needs to be crystal clear I might put "March 2nd, 2004".

Originally Posted by Dave_Sinkula

Understood -- although using paragraph separators does help.

Been there, done that got the T-shirt.

The question was aimed more toward a consumer of a product, which I thought I had at least alluded to, in regard to an individual's personal preference.

I know what I like, I know what I prefer; I know my list is far from exhaustive. The question is more or less, "What Do You Prefer?"

[edit]I know it's in there somewhere, although fairly well hidden.[/edit]

What I prefer most of the 3 formats is the "Mar 2, 2004" format as that's where my compatibility is the highest. Following that would the 03/02/2004 then the 20040302 format.

day. month. year, with month being either a number or a name. That's the German convention, so I prefer it.
For international purposes, YYYY-MM-DD. Using the 4-digit year makes it clear that it starts with a year, and it's unambiguous: at least I've never seen YYYY-DD-MM before.
MM/DD/YY is braindead.

Originally Posted by dwks

Again, if the date needs to be crystal clear I might put "March 2nd, 2004".

Ah perhaps I have omitted relevant details.

In addition, a time portion will consume either 5 or 6 characters on a 16-character line. With a separator, that gives you 9 or 10 characters for the date. If the text is longer than 16 characters, the text horizontally scrolls. An example might be seeing the date and an hour, with no minutes (well, until it scrolls).

How might this affect your choice of date representation?

Again, the frame of mind is such like a bank statement, email client, watch, PDA, event log, etc. In the end, a view of sequential items from most recent to least by date and time. And from a consumer perspective, not a techie one, unless that is also your consumer perspective.

Depends on the situation. My preference, and the way I write it is: "M/D/YYYY"

However, if I'm working with files, I prefer "YYYY-MM-DD", as this sorts. If only more people figured that out... then again, if only today's file managers were intelligent enough to recognize these situations. (Dates might be a little harder, but they could still place "Pic2.jpg" before "Pic10001.jpg"...)

I really don't like MM/DD/YY. It simply doesn't make sense,

Agreed, although I use it. If I had to guess, I'd say it had to do with most people saying dates "March 2, 2004" - MM/DD/YYYY, written out. You'd have to say instead, "2nd of March, 2004".

If this is some product/application in which the date plays such a large part, anything wrong with allowing customization? You could always allow the user to choose. (Although perhaps that's why you want the top three or so...) Some boards allow date customization using PHP's date() function's format.

Originally Posted by Cactus_Hugger

If this is some product/application in which the date plays such a large part, anything wrong with allowing customization? You could always allow the user to choose.

Not at all, that's the point of this query.

Originally Posted by Cactus_Hugger

(Although perhaps that's why you want the top three or so...)

Right now I think I've figured it into about 5 or 6 parameters that should give hundreds of options.

But I'm looking for things I may have missed or not considered.

Originally Posted by Cactus_Hugger

but they could still place "Pic2.jpg" before "Pic10001.jpg"...)

Some do it. I think the XP Explorer claims to do that, and I know I've seen a Linux file manager do this, too, although I can't remember which one.

Originally Posted by Dave_Sinkula

Ah perhaps I have omitted relevant details.

In addition, a time portion will consume either 5 or 6 characters on a 16-character line. With a separator, that gives you 9 or 10 characters for the date. If the text is longer than 16 characters, the text horizontally scrolls. An example might be seeing the date and an hour, with no minutes (well, until it scrolls).

How might this affect your choice of date representation?

Again, the frame of mind is such like a bank statement, email client, watch, PDA, event log, etc. In the end, a view of sequential items from most recent to least by date and time. And from a consumer perspective, not a techie one, unless that is also your consumer perspective.

Let's see, my "Mar 17, 2004" format is 12 characters. Wrap arounds, though they'd look odd, wouldn't affect me as I'd figure it out (and I'd even find it humorous as anything odd or unusual catches my attention).

Do note that a 16-character line wouldn't mean 16 characters in every font so it'd depend on the font. In the font used with "The Interactive Animation", "Nov" would be the widest (31 px). "Jul" would be the shortest (22 px). All the numbers are 10 pixels wide each (including the white space at the end). The colon is 4 and the comma is 5. Whether it's a character-count limit or a pixel-count limit, it's the font that matters.

Perhaps the shortest nonconflicting format possible would be the "Mar 17, 04 14:30" design with the two-digit year. That's actually 16 characters (using my hypercount ability to count and recheck). It's like anyone is going to be going back to 1904 or the item will continue on to 2104 where the horse-driven wagon is as obsolete today as the product would be even 30 years from now (since its accelerative (or logarithmic)). The seconds are of little importance.

Not exactly. Two lines, 16 characters each, exactly one fixed-width font (no pixel issues). The timestamp is on one line -- it's "line wrap" is marquee-style rotation of the string after an initial delay.

[edit]Think something like this.

It'd only have a small impact. Afterall, the "Mar 17, 04 14:30" format, which includes a non-conflicting date format, and the hour and minute along with it (in the 24-hour clock format which also prevents the conflict with 12:00 PM being noon or midnight), and it fits perfectly with 16 characters. Normally, I'd use the "Mar 17, 2004 10:30 AM" design which is 21 characters.

There appears to be an international date format, (basically yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss): http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html

This Wikipedia entry is also an interesting read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_date

Originally Posted by dwks

This Wikipedia entry is also an interesting read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_date

Heh. And now I've come full circle!

It was after doing much research of time/date stuff that since long ago I have been familiar with ISO 8601. And it was this very article showing such a variety of date formats used throughout various places that prompted me to start this thread -- in order to in part get a feel for this.

What I am taking away at this point is the that I would be correct in assuming that the ability to choose from quite a number of possible configurations would be beneficial. More beneficial than having some cookie cutter "America", "Europe", "Asia" type options.

---

In order to get a better "feel" for the menu system I'm working with and adding to, I've hacked out a simulator.

Disclaimer for all the pedants:
This code sucks. It is horrible. It has issues. It has bugs.

I don't care. It's a tool to help me produce the real thing, which is not very relevant to the simulation code.

That said, attached is some source that uses Windows console stuff that I've been using to get a feel for things. The only functional portion I'm using is the "Set Date Format" area (shortcut: RIGHT, RIGHT, DOWN, RIGHT). The rest is just placeholder junk to represent being part of the rest of something else. Once there, you can use the UP/DOWN to change the selection, and RIGHT to advance to the next option. When you are finished, LEFT-LEFT-LEFT should take you back to the "Main" screen.

Given that, for those who ignored my warnings and continued to participate, are you able to choose the format of your choice?