From: Paul & Eleanor (goodhill_at_xmission.com)
Date: Mon Feb 26 2001 - 03:37:32 CET
Received: (from mdom_at_localhost) by karto.ethz.ch (8.9.3/8.9.3/SuSE Linux 8.9.3-0.1) id DAA11160 for cavexml-outgoing; Mon, 26 Feb 2001 03:33:29 +0100 Received: from mail.xmission.com (mail.xmission.com [198.60.22.22]) by karto.ethz.ch (8.9.3/8.9.3/SuSE Linux 8.9.3-0.1) with ESMTP id DAA11156 for <cavexml_at_cartography.ch>; Mon, 26 Feb 2001 03:33:27 +0100 Received: from slc6.modem.xmission.com ([166.70.9.6] helo=xmission.com) by mail.xmission.com with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1) id 14XDTl-0000PV-00 for cavexml_at_cartography.ch; Sun, 25 Feb 2001 19:33:37 -0700 Message-ID: <3A99C16C.C29499A4@xmission.com> Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 19:37:32 -0700 From: Paul & Eleanor <goodhill_at_xmission.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: cavexml_at_cartography.ch Subject: Re: Dates: explicit fields and missing values References: <3.0.6.32.20010224112623.0083a990_at_popa.melbpc.org.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-cavexml_at_karto.baug.ethz.ch Precedence: bulk Reply-To: cavexml_at_cartography.ch
Peter MATTHEWS wrote:
>
> One of the main reasons I have preferred split-up dates in my database work
> is that sometimes you don't know all the components of the date, especially
> with old data, e.g. sometimes you only know the year, or the year and
> month. Obviously these would fail a "date" field validity test, so you
> would have to leave such a field empty. By splitting it you can just fill
> in as much as you know, then format it sensibly during presentation. Or if
> day, month and year *have* been filled in, then a routine algorithm can
> check their validity.
The argument for missing bits is an interesting one that might be a good
reason for allowing separate fields, but as
I said a few weeks ago, oddly enough ISO 8601 contains a variation
which allows for that.
-Paul
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Mar 01 2001 - 18:00:01 CET