Thread: What is Your Preferred Date Format?

What is your preference for the formatting of a date?

For example, the 2nd day of March 2004:

• 2004-03-02
• 2004/03/02
• 2004.03.02
• 03-02-2004
• 03/02/2004
• 03.02.2004
• 02-03-2004
• 02/03/2004
• 02.03.2004
• 2004-Mar-02
• 2004/Mar/02
• 2004.Mar.02
• Mar-02-2004
• Mar/02/2004
• Mar.02.2004
• 02-Mar-2004
• 02/Mar/2004
• 02.Mar.2004

Also, if you would be so kind, consider adding any relevant inclusion of your

1. Current and/or previous location(s) as they may have influenced this preference.
2. Whether or not government and/or military service played any part.
3. Preferred separator character(s).

Keep in mind that I already know that preferences and standards vary around the world in innumerable (it would seem) ways.

I'm just trying to get a general feel for a "top 3" type of thing.

Thank you for your participation and contributions.

[With a poll limit of 15 options, I couldn't put the original 18 options on the poll so I did some trimming to provide general representations of the basic options. And I made the poll public in case you want to be lazy and not reply but let me "track down" your location if I can -- that can be changed if y'all wish.]

I don't know why. I just do it that way

It's such a trivial thing. You need the "I don't care" option in the poll.

Originally Posted by citizen

You've been asking a lot of questions about the time lately. If you don't mind my asking, does this have anything to do with your new time library?

Real products that people use, yes...

I dunno, one of these three.

A nice dinner.Talking over several glasses of wine.Large amounts of sex
A nice dinner/Talking over several glasses of wine/Large amounts of sex
A nice dinner-Talking over several glasses of wine-Large amounts of sex

I kind of like the first because it seperates the elements of the date quite nicely I believe, even though the interaction between the elements (like dashes can sometimes imply) can be fun

...But in part the reason we get what we get is because sometimes we make engineering decisions and just go with Iso8601 -- Europe and America be damned -- because focus groups suck.


Or not.

DAY / MONTH / YEAR or:
YEAR / MONTH / DAY
It makes more sense to parse a date from the smallest unit to largest (or vice versa), but the hell with logic right? No, the American world is intent on doing things backwards. I commend America for its innovations, but if its one thing that really gets me is their die-hardness towards change. Its a constant daily struggle to have to parse a date 3 times over just to figure out what date it actually is (even worse when day, month, and year are all less than 12), not to mention having to constantly ask the expected format before writing the date on legal documents. I'm sure it will take the International Space Station blowing up from Imperial conversions before America decides to get with the program.

And so no one thinks I'm being biased here, yes I am including Canada when I refer to "America". Infact sometimes Canada disappoints me even more, we can be so naive sometimes, pretending that we can establish standards outside of American influence, yet ask most Canadians how fast a bullet travels and they'll probably give you an answer in FPS.

Originally Posted by Thantos

It really depends on the usage.

On a product you purchase that will display the date [as in calendar date] as you would prefer. Ex: cell phone, TV, microwave, whatever.

02/Mar/2004

It is closest thing to how I spell it (never May 2, always 2nd of May - I mean in my native language) and I cannot be misinterpreted as 03-Feb

I prefer any that are explicit, in addition to month, day, year, but only because that's how I verbally communicate the date: "The day in question is March the 2nd, 2004."

2004-03-02 I don't mind, because it makes sense going from year to month to day. The opposite way is too ambiguous because of month, day, year.

It depends on the situation and where its used. For internet usage, such as on my site, it's the first 3 letters of the month name, the day number, then the 4-digit year. This prevents all date format conflicts. Locally, when writing dates, it's the MM/DD/YYYY format since there's almost no chance of a date conflict. For files that contain dates and must be sorted chronologically, I use the YYYYMMDD format. The separators also vary. For my site, it'd be "Mar 2, 2004" for that example date (or "Jun 4, 2007" for today's date in my area (it's close to midnight so that's about to change)). I'd use "03/02/2004" locally (or "06/04/2007"), and in file names, I'd use "20040302" (or "20070604") of which doesn't have spaces. Locally and in file names, I add leading zeros as needed. For other internet usage, there are no leading zeros added. I always use the 4-digit year in every case. For internet usage, it's the date format conflict issue that influenced me in doing it that way (also, SimCity 3000 played a role, giving the first 3 letters of the month). Because file names, when sorted in a directory listing, are alphabetical, the design I use lets me sort file names chronologically correctly. The influence for the other is the general format I see in my local area.

My preferred date format is the group date

Originally Posted by ulillillia

It depends on the situation and where its used. For internet usage, such as on my site, it's the first 3 letters of the month name, the day number, then the 4-digit year. This prevents all date format conflicts. Locally, when writing dates, it's the MM/DD/YYYY format since there's almost no chance of a date conflict. For files that contain dates and must be sorted chronologically, I use the YYYYMMDD format. The separators also vary. For my site, it'd be "Mar 2, 2004" for that example date (or "Jun 4, 2007" for today's date in my area (it's close to midnight so that's about to change)). I'd use "03/02/2004" locally (or "06/04/2007"), and in file names, I'd use "20040302" (or "20070604") of which doesn't have spaces. Locally and in file names, I add leading zeros as needed. For other internet usage, there are no leading zeros added. I always use the 4-digit year in every case. For internet usage, it's the date format conflict issue that influenced me in doing it that way (also, SimCity 3000 played a role, giving the first 3 letters of the month). Because file names, when sorted in a directory listing, are alphabetical, the design I use lets me sort file names chronologically correctly. The influence for the other is the general format I see in my local area.

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]