Re: date not parsing full iso-8601

[Jos Backus]

    Hi Paul,

On Fri, Jul 22, 2005 at 09:30:42AM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Jos Backus <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > It would seem that GNU date should simply dispense with emitting the `T'
> > between the date and time field in IOS 8601 mode until the parsing of this
> > particular format is supported. The `T' is optional according to the 
> > standard
> 
> It is?  As far as I can tell, it's required.

Note that I haven't read the actual standards document. But if that is the
case, then how can the following be valid formats according to Markus Kuhn's
document (which w3.org links to, btw)?

<quote>
This means that the following two notations refer to exactly the same point in
time:

    1995-02-04 24:00 = 1995-02-05 00:00
</quote>

> > Please consider removing the `T' from the iso_format_strings.
> 
> That seems a bit extreme, for backward-compatibility reasons.  However,
> I agree that the "T" is ugly and should get removed.
> 
> How about if we do it by supporting Internet RFC 3339 instead?
> See:
> 
> G. Klyne & C. Newman
> Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps (2002-07)
> <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3339.txt>
 
Thanks for the link, I'll have a look.

> That is, how about if we do the following?
> 
> 1.  Keep --iso-8601 the way it is, for backward-compatibility reasons,
>     but deprecate it and stop documenting it.
> 
> 2.  Introduce a new option --rfc-3339[=TIMESPEC], with the same operands as
>     --iso-8601, but with the following differences:
> 
>     2a.  Output a space instead of "T".
>          RFC 3339 allows this "for the sake of readability".
> 
>     2b.  Output "." instead of "," for the decimal point.
>          RFC 3339 requires this.
> 
>     2c.  Output ":" between the hours and minutes of the time zone offset.
> 
>     2d.  The TIMESPEC defaults to whatever resolution is supported by
>          the current host.
> 
> 3.  For convenience, introduce a new short option -i that is
>     equivalent to --rfc-3339 with the default TIMESPEC.  The mnemonic
>     is that "-i" is short for "Internet time".
> 
> So, for example:
> 
> $ date -i
> 2005-07-22 09:13:17.959906-07:00

Good plan, I like this. Thanks Paul.

-- 
Jos Backus
jos at catnook.com