Thread: Re: [INTERFACES] Access'97 and ODBC

On 30 Apr 1998, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:

> "Jose' Soares Da Silva" <sferac@bo.nettuno.it> writes:
>
> > I vote for changing default date format to ISO-8601 to reflect
> > PostgreSQL documentation and for adherence to Standard SQL92.
>
> Hear!  Hear!  Good standards beat silly conventions any day!
>
Seems that you don't like conventions Tom, but you want
that all world use dates with American format.
Seems that you want impose one convention.
We're working with a database which name is PostgreSQL.
I suppose that you know what's mean the last 3 letters.
                                                           Jose'

On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Jose' Soares Da Silva wrote:

> On 30 Apr 1998, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:
>
> > "Jose' Soares Da Silva" <sferac@bo.nettuno.it> writes:
> >
> > > I vote for changing default date format to ISO-8601 to reflect
> > > PostgreSQL documentation and for adherence to Standard SQL92.
> >
> > Hear!  Hear!  Good standards beat silly conventions any day!
> >
> Seems that you don't like conventions Tom, but you want
> that all world use dates with American format.
> Seems that you want impose one convention.

    Can someone inform me of what ISO-8601 exactly is?

On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, The Hermit Hacker wrote:

> On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Jose' Soares Da Silva wrote:
>
> > On 30 Apr 1998, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:
> >
> > > "Jose' Soares Da Silva" <sferac@bo.nettuno.it> writes:
> > >
> > > > I vote for changing default date format to ISO-8601 to reflect
> > > > PostgreSQL documentation and for adherence to Standard SQL92.
> > >
> > > Hear!  Hear!  Good standards beat silly conventions any day!
> > >
> > Seems that you don't like conventions Tom, but you want
> > that all world use dates with American format.
> > Seems that you want impose one convention.
>
>     Can someone inform me of what ISO-8601 exactly is?
>

  -  ISO 8601:1988, Data elements and interchange formats - Information
     interchange-Representation of dates and times.

     3.1.2  Definitions taken from ISO 8601

     This International Standard makes use of the following terms
     defined in ISO 8601:

     a) Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
     b) date ("date, calendar" in ISO 8601)

     See (Second Informal Review Draft) ISO/IEC 9075:1992,
          Database Language SQL- July 30, 1992)


The required ISO 8601 syntax for DATE is:

DATE 'YYYY-MM-DD'

Comments:

     1) DATE combines the datetime fields YEAR, MONTH and DAY.

     2) DATE defines a set of correctly formed values that
        represent any valid Gregorian calendar date between January 1, 1
        AD and December 31, 9999 AD.

     3) Any operation  that attempts to make a DATE <data type>
        contain a YEAR value that is less than 1 or greater than 9999
        will fail; the DBMS will return the:
    SQLSTATE error 22007 "data exception-invalid datetime format".

     4) DATE expects dates to have the following form: yyyy-mm-dd
        e.g.: 1994-07-15 represents July 15, 1994.
     5) DATE has a length of 10.
     6) Date literals must start with the <keyword> DATE and
      include 'yyyy-mm-dd';
      e.g.:

            CREATE mytable (mydate DATE);
            INSERT INTO mytable (mydate) VALUES (DATE '1996-01-01');

                                                            Jose'

The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org> writes:

>     Can someone inform me of what ISO-8601 exactly is?

It's the international standard for representation of date and time.
ISO is the International Organization for Standardization (yeah, I
know, the letters are in the wrong order -- although not in French).
8601 is big and complicated, and some of the legal variations in there
look pretty silly, but the gist of it is simple and good, and I'm
typing this text at approximately 1998-04-30 20:59:07 UTC.

-tih
--
Popularity is the hallmark of mediocrity.  --Niles Crane, "Frasier"