Adam, I agree with you, and consider your pointing out the international (ISO) standard to be quite a valuable contribution, except that I tested it and it doesn't work in Microsoft Excel (and maybe not in any other "modern software" except by indirect means!
Excel will not convert to date with time if the "T" is present. Excel does not support the time zone parameter! The minus values have no effect on the time display and the + and Z values cause the field to be interpreted as plain text. As both the date and time components (of my Microsoft-compatible suggestion) are ISO 8601 compliant on their own, I suggest the only way (to satisfy the need both for any easy human-readable format and for seamless spreadsheet input) is to present the Date and Time delimited by a space (Microsoft will read it in as a single Date/Time value), and the time zone in its own distinct field (if it is deemed necessary to include it). eg. "2002-03-26 03:46","-5" Of course we will need another field in the header for the Time Zone, but if it is always shown in UTC (or US EST) then it will be redundant to include it in every line. I strongly recommend simply using UTC/GMT (equals Z or +00), and therefore not stating the time zone in transaction lists, which brings us back to my original suggestion. eg. "2002-03-26 08:46", Regards, Ian Green At 01:45 PM 26/03/2002 -0600, "G. Adam Stanislav" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <SNIP> >Personally, I would like it to go all the way to following >international standards, i.e., ISO 8601, which would look just <SNIP> >be called GMT). So, your examples (assuming UTC) would become: > > 2002-02-26T06:56Z > 2002-03-01T03:51Z <SNIP> >tell you that I was born 1950-04-23T00:30+01 - that is 1 hour <SNIP> >Since this format is an official ISO standard (and has been >for years), most modern software should be able to interpret >it correctly. > >Markus Kuhn maintains a nice web page about this particular standard >at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html - it is well worth >reading and implementing. <SNIP> --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
