Re: XML-like date/time support ?

[Paul Eggert]

Nicolas Mailhot <address@hidden> writes:

>> <http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/>

> Yep, the xml schema is the official specification from hell everyone
> wants to forget

But if it's the official one, it's the one that "date" should conform to, no?

> it'll get superseded by something more sane like relax NG in time.

Sorry, what's "relax NG"?  Is there a draft of this somewhere?

> It's only formalising the Reuters doc BTW.

But it changed some important details, at least as I read it.  For
example, it introduced negative years, using a format that "date"
cannot currently support.  And it says that the format of negative
years is scheduled to change in a future version of the standard, to a
different form that "date" cannot currently support either.

This is not purely a pedantic point, as "date" can easily generate
negative years on 64-bit operating systems.

> 3. I forgot the fractional seconds part. Probably means you're not
> allowed to pad with zeros. I don't think it's enforced in real life (but
> I may be wrong)...
>
> Non canonical formats are not desired at all. XML is stop on first
> mistake - canonical is the only thing allowed.

These statements seem to contradict each other.

I'm not saying that support for this format shouldn't be added; only
that it'll be more useful if we know exactly what we're getting into.