YYYY-MM-DD is the only acceptable date format, as commanded by ISO 8601.
"There shall be no other date formats before ISO8601. Remember this format and keep it as the system default"
Largest to smallest unit of time. It just makes sense.
Sorting by date would be so much better with yyyymmdd .
ISO 8601, while great, has too many formats. May I introduce RFC 3339 instead?
YES! I wish more people knew about RFC 3339. While I'm all for ISO 1601, it's a bit too loose in its requirements at times, and people often end up surprised that it's just not the format they picked...
Huh, I've never noticed how much bloat was in ISO 8601. I think when most people refer to it, we're specifically referring to the date (optionally with time) format that is shared with RFC 3339, namely 2023-11-22T20:00:18-05:00 (etc). And perhaps some fuzziness for what separates date and time.
Glad I can count my own country, Lithuania, among the enlightened.
EDIT: Source of the picture: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Date_format_by_country_NEW.svg
It's alphabetically sortable too. Name backups like this.
The truth. Amen
DD/MM/YY and YY/MM/DD are the only acceptable ones IMO. Throwing a DD in between YY and MM is just weird since days move by faster so they should be at one of the ends and since YY moves the slowest it should be on the other end.
I'm not kidding when I ask: are there really a lot of people using MM/DD/YYYY??
Pretty much every American I've ever met. Dates on drivers license, bank info, etc - all in MM/DD/YYYY ... or even just MM/DD/YY
I regularly confuse people with YYYY-MM-DD
If you use DD/MM/YYYY, dumb sorting algorithms will put all of the 1sts of every month together, all of the 2nds of every month together, etc. That doesn't seem very useful unless you're trying to identify monthly trends, which is fundamentally flawed as things like the number of days in the month or which day of the week a date falls on can significantly disrupt those trends.
With MM/DD/YY, the only issue is multiple years being grouped together. Which may be what you want, especially if the dates are indicating cumulative totals. Depending on the data structure, years are often sorted out separately anyways.
YYYY/MM/DD is definitely the best for sorting. However, the year is often the least important piece in data analysis. Because often the dataset is looking at either "this year" or "the last 12 months". So the user's eyes need to just ignore the first 5 characters, which is not very efficient.
If you're using a tool that knows days vs months vs years that can help, but you can run into compatibility issues when trying to move things around.
The ugly truth no one wants to admit on these conversations is that these formats are tools. Some are better suited to certain jobs than others.
Should just burn it all down and do. MM/YY/DD
I hope you mean YYYY, not just YY
Japan is YYYY-MM-DD, but when we talk about dates where a year is unneeded, we just cut it off which leaves it in the US standard format of MM-DD, much to the annoyance of non-US foreigners living here.
The only reason they place month as first is because it is fits how dates are read in English, but that's not a good reason to keep that format.
You only think it fits with how it's read in English because that's how you grew up saying it so it sounds natural to you. Your experience is not universal, and is in fact, a minority.
It's how it is read in English (simplified) aka american english. Brittish english doesn't do this nonsense, the talk in the correct format (first of january etc.).
(I'm sorry if i made some mistakes, english is my second language)
I grew up with DD.MM.YYYY. But I think, MM/DD makes sense in everyday usage. You don’t often need to specify dates with year accuracy. “Jane’s prom is on 7th September” – it’s obvious which year is meant. Then it’s sensible to start with the larger unit, MM, instead of DD.
Even in writing you see that the year is always given like an afterthought: “7th September**,** 2023“.
ISO 8601 format is the best (YYYY-MM-DD).
I like that for files, but not for written documents. When I label things I try to use the most intuitive/least confusing way I can think of: DD mmm YYYY. This comment is posted on 23 NOV 2023, for example.
I do prefer the abbreviated month with the yyyy mmm dd format. It makes things relatively easy to sort but you also don't have to worry about confusing others if you are referring to the 10th month or day for example.
The only correct format. Least to most specific.
Used to be my account name on a different website social media aggregator.
For Excel 100%
YYYY-MM-DD (honestly without dashes) is the only helpful format.
If you name all your files with this as a suffix then your files automatically sort versions of themselves in order when sorting by name.
ISO 8601 baby
Though it ought to be a prefix, not a suffix
Came here to say this, I use DD.MM.YY in day-to-day stuff, but for files it's either YYYY_MM_DD or YY_MM_DD, the automatic ordering is beautiful
Yeah this method is superior for digital filing. I can't imagine the sorting clusters I'd have to go through to find what I want any other way
MMDDYY is just a mess. Otherwise… US problems, I don’t care…
Not to us burgerland citizens! 🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅🦅💥💥
The most American statement ever :DEdit: I am taking it back and admitting defeat. America != US. I am ashamed.
It actually makes sense when you put YYYY/MM/DD in filenames as they will be sorted pretty neat (ex: reports)
Yeah for a lot of files you probably would sort by year in the end
It is arguably the best way to name large sets of indexed files on a filesystem.
I think that the best argument is that it makes sense when combined with hours minutes and seconds.
yyyy/MM/dd hh:mm:ss
Goes from large to small units.
It sorts
Japan's way, you mean?
Yes, YYYY/MM/DD
Files already have computer readable dates that can be used to sort and organize them
In certain instances that may not always be available.
One example I can think of is when browsing on a NAS.
This meme implies there's an equal battle between MM/DD/YY and DD/MM/YY, which is nonsense. Much like imperial units, only 'murica uses MM/DD/YY.
Oi guvnah, ow many stone chu weigh?
Only one, but it has my exact weight
If you look at the calendar, you'll see that we are not in 1900 anymore.
No one I know measures their own weight in imperial.
Talking about fuel efficiency in miles per liter 🤣
I have 2 stones if that's what you're asking.
Liberia and Myanmar also use imperial units, but they're both starting to move towards metric in recent years so soon the US truly will be alone in that
YYYY-MM-DD in Hungary too, that us shit is totally non logical, i cant get used to it
Fuckin wait until you hear how many feet are in a mile. You all should've waterboarded us harder while we were a young country.
FIvE tOMaToeS
When you're naming a file, you can't use anything else.
You're not wrong. through much trial and error in the 1990s I learned this was the most efficient & accurate & chronologically searchable way to date things.
Iso date format. Anything to do with photos is best to have in this format at the start of the filename.
Iso date format. Anything
to do with photosis best to have in this format at the start of the filename.Fixt.
It also means that by default it'll sort by newest
YYYY-MM-DD for everything digital, DD-MM-YYYY for everything IRL.
I propose the use of MYDYDM format. So, October 15, 2023 will be written as 121350. Just to make it as confusing as possible.
And then convert that to hexadecimal, making it 1DA06
Welp. I need a bath now.
Amazing
We're also unduly forgetting about truly little endian date format: DD/MM/YYYY, for instance 52/11/3202 for this Saturday
Also we could just sort the numbers and omit leading zeroes, that way we can save some space, the same date would be 1122235
YYYY-MM-DD for files, DD-MM-YYYY for normal use
TBH, Japanese format makes sense when you use it to name files/directories, as sorting by "name" is equivalenti to sorting by "last modified".
equivalenti
Love typos that force me to read comments with an Italian accent
I'm actually italian, lol, but that was a genuine typo.
Free upvotes for both of you
Until you need to work across centuries. Then it's eating paste level.
Japan I can get behind but MM/dd/yyyy is just evil, why would you sandwich days between months and years? You monster
The only reason I could see is if you were speaking it. September 18th 2012 for example might sound a bit better than 18 September 2012.
Japan wins this one.
DD/MM for readability, YYYY/MM/DD for alphabetical sorting that's also chronological.
Ironically, MM/DD/YYYY works better for chronological sorting than DD/MM/YYYY, so long as you don't go between years.
Didn't think I'd be saying this but the Americans have an edge over us Brits.
By this logic one might say that DD/MM/YYYY works for alphabetical chronological sort if you don't go between months...
Have another go at this train of thought, mate... You're basically saying "MM/DD" is better at sorting chronologically than "DD/MM", since the year part is taken out of the equation, which is already the established consensus, and not ironical whatsoever. And the ISO standard is already to use YYYY-MM-DD, so that's the winner IMO, hands down. Japan is simply following that but using a slash as the delimiter.
When you search or do any stable sort, I would think you want your primary attribute to be the one with most finite values? That way you are front loading the pruning of the search space.
So it's actually on favor of Japanese style
Its the same for all East Asian countries as well, but I guess slapping
JAPANon it means fast upvotes, like that"Place, Japan"meme.I can't speak for everyone but I see something Japanese then I upvote it, doesn't matter what it is.
Sushi, Bullet train, Bonsai, Anime, Bukkake, Haiku
Military be like 23/NOV/2023
SQL HAS ENTETED THE CHAT;
Why would you save dates as a date format when you can save them as an int or string and make calculations more complicated
Hey… it sorts properly alphabetically
Only within the same century, which is an issue for those of us born last millennium (or managing systems from that time), and could be a real problem in 50-ish years when we could get the first duplicates.
Better to stick with YYYY-MM-DD for alphabetical sorting
*ASCIIbetically. The alphabet doesn’t know digits.
Japan isn't on its own wavelength, most of East Asian does this, probably because they all decided they wanted to be like China: which was a government which governed more. https://youtu.be/Mh5LY4Mz15o?t=1m7s
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/Mh5LY4Mz15o?t=1m7s
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
The right answer is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time
Hey dude do you know what time it is?
Sure, it's just about 1700671157
Uh thanks...
Uh thanks…
I think the correct response is "1". If something went wrong, you'd respond "0".
It makes sense to either go general to specific or specific to general. MM-DD-YYYY is neither.
The nasty little Swedes also do that. Typisk svensk.
TIL that I'm Japanese
YY/MM/DD SUPREMACY
The truly enlightened interleave the numerals: YMD/YMD
The UK driving licence has birthdate as YMMDDY in the licence number. Totally uncrackable encryption.
Reiwa era enters the chat
Most of Japanese hates the arbitary currender year resetting at each new emperor enthronrment. The conversion is ass and no one knows when it changes (bound to emperor's health) . Worst is its official year that govmt body accepts.
Real Estate Institute of Western Australia?
What do you mean you can't translate instantly between era year and Gregorian year?
You are likely to only refer more than current era. If you're writing govmet grant application, renewing licence or certificate, chances are you mention events hapenned in previous era. You look up table for when the previous era started and ended, which era said year falls into, then convert for each year, each era. Extra minutes wasted every time instead of simply writing in Gregorian year.
There is of course a relevant xkcd page
How about 0xYYYMDD or 0xYYYYMDD if you need years after 4095 for some reason.
Today is 0x7e7b16
China does this too. I love getting files in this format.
Taste nippon formatting, gaigin
The fuck is a gaigin, gaikokujin?
They were obviously referring to foreign banks, duh.
Don't ask how they count the years tho
Yeah but half the time is actually: EYY/MM/DD. Like this year is 令5/MM/DD.
And some years have two values, 2019 was both 平31, from 01/01 until 04/30, then 令1 from 05/01 onwards.
Wat? Like their alphabet, do the Japanese have some double system?
China does this normally. Either YYYY.MM.DD OR YYYY年MM月DD日
Yes, they have two date systems in common use. It's only the year that changes though. And there's no way to confuse the two, usually. If you write "2023" instead of "令5" it's pretty obvious. I suppose there is a potential for confusion if one just writes a two-digit year though.
Is the kanji the name of the period the year belongs to or something? That looks interesting. Where can I find out more?
Whenever their Emperor changes, the year starts with a new name(年号, which translates to name of year(s)). This time it's 令和(reiwa). Before that it was 平成(heisei). It is very commonly used.
Yup, it's a single character from the name of the era, and the era changes every time the emperor does.
It's 1700663620 now.
Tbf Japan's system still makes more sense than having the month first. The month is the middle number so it makes no sense having that first
Japan I can get behind but MM/dd/yyyy is just evil, why would you sandwich days between months and years? You monster
Japan I can get behind but MM/dd/yyyy is just evil, why would you sandwich days between months and years? You monster
YYYY-MM-DD should be the main everywhere.
It is in Lithuania
Pretty f'd up we can't all even agree on this. Between this and DST, humanity is just pretty hopeless.
Yep, today is 2023, November 22.
Someone should make this an alternative date format in English, it looks and works really well.
119 doesent feel the same
"Steel Beams Can't Melt Jet Fuel."
wait... it actually makes sense this way
Canada does that
Isn't Japanese read from right to left?
Japan reads back to front
To nitpick, it reads from front to back. It just has a different concept of front and back from the West.
No that's Arabic
Japanese and Chinese were read right-to-left until 20th century.
These formats are overrated.
MM/YYYY/DDis clearly better.
