Re: iso-timestring fix / proposal for saner timezones

Harald Hanche-Olsen <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.lisp.clsql.general
Message-ID <[email protected]>
+ Nathan Bird <[email protected]>:

> It now outputs
>       YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.UUUUUU
> which should be a valid iso8601 timestamp and is parseable by
> parse-timestring et al. Additionally, it does not print the ".UUUUUU"
> part if there are no microseconds; useful for the databases that don't
> support fractional seconds.

Actually, as far as I understand iso8601 that is not a valid
timestamp. I have here a pdf of ISO 8601:2004(E), and it quite
explicitly specifies the letter "T" as the time designator, i.e., the
character between the date and the time. For example, one should write
2010-02-03T03:34:16Z and not 2010-02-03 03:34:16Z for a certain moment
that passed while I was writing these words (the letter Z stands for
UTC). A space is often used in place of the T for human readable
output, but then it is no longer strictly ISO 8601.

I am not necessarily saying that the letter T should be used in this
context; all I am asking that one departs from ISO 8601, one should at
least be aware of the fact (and perhaps even document the departure).

Amusing detail: The standard says

  Unless explicitly allowed by this International Standard the
  character “space” shall not be used in the representations.

I cannot find any place in the standard which explicitly allows a
space, rendering the first half of the above quote pointless.

- Harald
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