Where to find list of all format of dates?

[toplisek]

Where to find list of all format of dates like USA, European, UK

[g1smd]

What date format would you show a German person, working for a US company, but located in Japan?

These problems can be very difficult to solve if you want to show a different format for your users.

If you want a world-readable unambiguous date/time system, look to International Standard ISO 8601, which answered this question in 1971. Less than half a dozen countries have not signed up to this standard.

You could just default to using that, or else provide a menu option for people to choose their display format, with the default as the ISO standard.

[toplisek]

Is ok the following:
1. date and its format:
1. 1.EU
DD.MM.YYYY
1.2. USA
MM.DD.YYYY

2. Time is the following format
2. 1. USA
like 5:47 pm before date
2.2. EU format is in 24-hour clock format like: 12:50

[dcheney]

IMO, the best language independent way of showing a date is in the form:
3 XI 2008
The regular number being used for the day and the year, but roman numerals used for months. Its a very old method - should be readable without confusion by most folks.

[toplisek]

Hi,
nice sample...he

[g1smd]

With DD.MM.YYYY what date is 12.02.2008?

December 2nd? 12th February?

[piatkow]

Stick with ISO8601 yyyy-mm-dd, unambiguous and sorts correctly even when stored as character strings.

[jimbeetle]

Stick with ISO8601 yyyy-mm-dd, unambiguous...

Unambiguous if as a casual user I even know what ISO8601 is, otherwise 2008.12.02 is just as ambiguous to me as g1smd points out above.

The old "If in doubt, spell it out," comes to mind: Tuesday, November 4, 2008.

[Fotiman]

2008.12.02 is just as ambiguous to me

I think it's quite obvious. It goes from largest to smallest (year.month.day). I've never seen the date format: year.day.month.

[tedster]

I agree Fotiman - and that format has the advantage that a list will sort very nicely in date order across several year.

[LifeinAsia]

Until we come to the Y10K bug... :)

[jimbeetle]

I think it's quite obvious. It goes from largest to smallest (year.month.day). I've never seen the date format: year.day.month.

From our point of view, sure, but does the casual visitor know that? With all the different numerical date formats visitors are exposed to around the web I'd rather hit them in the face than have them ask, even for a second, which one they're seeing at the moment.