Decoding a Date String

[paul_cardinale]

I want to decode date strings from a variety of different formats.  Of course not all date strings are unambiguous; but I want to handle a reasonable range of possibilities.

Here's what I've come up with:

Suggestions appreciated.

[santo_13]

This poses a new risk, many dates match more than one format, for example, 7/4/06 - this could be 7 Apr 2006 or 4 July 2006 or 6 Apr 2007 based on the user's location

[GerdW]

Hi Paul,

you forgot:

• dd.mm.yy(yy) (or mm.dd.yy(yy)) formats using points as separators
• dd. %b yy(yy) format (you might get into trouble with foreign language month names)
• ISO8601 formatted timestamps…
• …

[BertMcMahan]

I've seen YYYYMMDD before too (just one long string), which would just be %<%Y%m%d>T.

[paul_cardinale]

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@GerdW wrote:

Hi Paul,

you forgot:

• dd.mm.yy(yy) (or mm.dd.yy(yy)) formats using points as separators
• dd. %b yy(yy) format (you might get into trouble with foreign language month names)
• ISO8601 formatted timestamps…
• …

---

I don't want to encourage anyone to use dotted formats (for dates and phone numbers).

[paul_cardinale]

New version

[GerdW]

Hi Paul,

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@paul_cardinale wrote:
I don't want to encourage anyone to use dotted formats (for dates and phone numbers).

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But exactly those are standard in Central Europe! (Well, atleast for dates. Never seen phone numbers using dots.)

Tomorrow is 08.07.2022 for me…

With a big grin: when asking a worldwide forum for opinions you should not reject worldwide suggestions because of an US point of view… 😄

[Frozen]

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@GerdW wrote:

Hi Paul,

---

@paul_cardinale wrote:
I don't want to encourage anyone to use dotted formats (for dates and phone numbers).

---

But exactly those are standard in Central Europe! (Well, atleast for dates. Never seen phone numbers using dots.)

Tomorrow is 08.07.2022 for me…

With a big grin: when asking a worldwide forum for opinions you should not reject worldwide suggestions because of an US point of view… 😄

---

[crossrulz]

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@Frozen wrote:

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@GerdW wrote:

Hi Paul,

---

@paul_cardinale wrote:
I don't want to encourage anyone to use dotted formats (for dates and phone numbers).

---

But exactly those are standard in Central Europe! (Well, atleast for dates. Never seen phone numbers using dots.)

Tomorrow is 08.07.2022 for me…

With a big grin: when asking a worldwide forum for opinions you should not reject worldwide suggestions because of an US point of view… 😄

---

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NOTE: The following comment is entirely tongue-in-cheek

Yeah, but as an American, I feel obliged to not care

On a more serious note, I do prefer YYYY-MM-DD because it makes sorting a lot easier.

[GerdW]

Hi,

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@crossrulz wrote:

On a more serious note, I do prefer YYYY-MM-DD because it makes sorting a lot easier.

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Me too!

(There's a reason why I mentioned ISO8601 in message #3…)

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@crossrulz wrote:
Yeah, but as an American, I feel obliged to not care

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Yes, I know. 😉