Standards for date / time values?

[Gail Kampmeier]

Hi Lynn & John,

Personally, I don't think that combined date fields are adequate,
particularly for retrospective data capture.  We have far too many
insect labels with partial dates (tiny labels, tiny print, no room),
which really mess up (probably also platform dependent screwups) when
you try to enter the data as a date without one of the pieces.  We've
found all permutations--year only, month and year, month and day,
well, maybe not day and year...but that's enough of a variety that we
have all the fields individually broken out to accomodate this and
then account for missing data in a calculated "pseudo" date by making
assumptions depending on which piece may be missing.  It also gives
you greater flexibility and assuredness that you have the day and the
month able to be put in the order desired or show the date in
different formats such as 6.ix.1956, where the day and the month
could easily be confused.

Cheers!
Gail

>Hi Lynn,
>
>XML Schema, in its dateTime type, supports a subset of the ISO 8601
>datetime standard. The proposal for DwC2 currently recommends the
>concepts EarliestDateCollected and LatestDateCollected, both as
>dateTime types, to capture bounded or unbounded date/time
>combinations of arbitrary specificity. These should be sufficient
>except where lists of dates or other multiple date ranges are
>required for a single record - unless I'm missing something, in
>which case I'd like to know.
>
>Cheers,
>
>John
>
>
>On 2/23/06, Lynn Kutner
><<mailto:Lynn_Kutner at natureserve.org>Lynn_Kutner at natureserve.org>
>wrote:
>
>Hi -
>
>I'm working with a suite of date attributes that can include a
>combination of precise dates, imprecise dates, and ranges of dates
>(and the same types of time values). We'd like to follow existing
>standards. If this sort of date / time standard exists, I'd
>appreciate leads to the appropriate resources.
>
>Thank you for your help -
>Lynn
>
>
>Lynn Kutner
>Data Management Coordinator
>NatureServe
>Email:    <mailto:lynn_kutner at natureserve.org>lynn_kutner at natureserve.org
>Phone:   (303) 541-0360
>www.natureserve.org


--
======================
Gail E. Kampmeier
Sr. Research Entomologist
Illinois Natural History Survey
Box 5 NSRC, 1101 W. Peabody Dr.
Urbana, IL 61801
http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/~gkamp
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