XML-like date/time support ?

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Hi,

The XML folks have defined a single common international date/time
format people can actually use :
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime

(based on the ISO 8601 spec, keeping only what's really needed)

Unfortunately it can not be produced by shell scripts using the "date"
command.

The main problem is the timezone representation : date will output the
zone code, the w3c profile asks for the time differential to the UTC
time (much more useful IMHO, this way one can read a date/time without
needing to know the meaning of all the world's timezone identifiers).

Would it be possible to enhance date and :
- add a formatting flag to output the timezone in value (%z ?)
- add a formatting shorthand for full date/time in w3c format ?

I've been bitten to many times by bad datetime formatting assumptions
I'd really love to push a common international standard. Right now every
country has its own incompatible convention.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

signature.asc
Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée