Date Format

Which way for Americans?

[Nick_W]

So, is it:

a) 23rd March 2003 or
b) March 23rd 2003

for you Americans?

Thanks!

Nick

[Bradley]

March 23, 2003

[Nick_W]

Cheers Bradley,

Is it just me or is this thread layed out oddly?

<------ this bit seems too wide?

Nick

[mack]

I always try and make dates read well no matter where the user is from. Even when filling out a form using drop downs I prefere to use month names as oposed to Numbers. Because of the US Europe difference in that we thing each other is back to front it always makes good practice to use names so that the user will be in no doubt.

[Romeo]

... hmm, according to ISO-8601 [which corresponds to US ANSI X 3.30-1985(R 1991) and US NIST FIPS 4-1], this should read 2003-03-23.

Regards,
R.

[victor]

Romeo,

try this old thread for a very full discussion of the issue:
[webmasterworld.com...]

I think its fair to say that not everyone agreed that ISO's reasons for a yy-mm-dd all-digit date (misinterpretation acoss national boundaries) applied to their website.

Where [dates and times] are interchanged across national boundaries misinterpretation of the significance of the numerals can occur, resulting in confusion and other consequential errors or losses. The purpose of this International Standard is to eliminate the risk of misinterpretation and to avoid the confusion and its consequences.

[Romeo]

Victor,

thank you for the interesting thread-pointer.

Yes, I know that the ISO-8601 standard is not very popular, but I could not resist just to mention it.
This ISO standard has been adopted by many national standards organisations (including the US) over the years and it is fascinating to see how it is ignored by a wide majority. I don't see it being used much, and most of my friends and colleagues don't know and don't care at all.
But the standards exist and so I just try to spread the word ...

Regards,
R.