Time & Date Formats

[PrimalJay]

What is the most effective and official way to display a time and date?

 

Instead of using the 24 hour clock symbolising say 1:30 pm as 13:30, what do people prefer to use and what is quickest and most easiest for them?

 

I personally hate the 24 hour clock, it looks bad on paper and I always have to read a timetable at least twice to figure out how 24 hour clock equates to 12 hour normal clock.

 

If we were meant to have 24 hour clock then why has our clocks and watches only got 12 numbers instead of 24, sounds rather dumb to use 24 if you ask me.

 

Also, regarding dates, people sometimes say 29 March 2012 or March 29 2012.

 

Or some people use the short hand way and have it look like 29/02/12 or 29/2/12 or 29/02/2012 or 29/2/2012, the list of ways is endless.

 

Also, I have seen some times using the : as a divider and some just using a .

 

Also again, what is a better way to divide a date, should you use the forward slash / or a line - or underscore _. For dates with the name in like March instead of using 03, should a space be used instead of a punctuated divider?

 

Boy what a dilemma.

[Strix]

for dates, I'd go with characters for the month rather than numerals, as the US rather annoyingly writes their dates back to front to us, which is fine for the latter half of the month when it's obvious it's the wrong way round, but is ambiguous for anything before the thirteenth of any month

 

Times are, in theory, less ambiguous as 24hr representation, so if it's a timetable or other critical usage, I'd go with that. If it's just to log the time of a purchase (for instance) it's not that important, so go with what you like

[HeadingNorth]

If we were meant to have 24 hour clock then why has our clocks and watches only got 12 numbers instead of 24

 

Because clocks were invented to measure daylight hours (more accurately - or rather, less accurately - they were invented to match sundials, which only worked during daylight hours and were split into twelve divisions. Then someone realised that it was easier to just make all of the hours the same length, which sundials do not do.)

Now that we measure time throughout all twenty-fours of day and night, it would be "a bit dumb" not to use a 24-hour clock, but old habits die hard.

 

 

 

Also, regarding dates, people sometimes say 29 March 2012 or March 29 2012.

 

Or some people use the short hand way and have it look like 29/02/12 or 29/2/12 or 29/02/2012 or 29/2/2012, the list of ways is endless.

 

Also, I have seen some times using the : as a divider and some just using a .

 

Also again, what is a better way to divide a date, should you use the forward slash / or a line - or underscore _. For dates with the name in like March instead of using 03, should a space be used instead of a punctuated divider?

 

Boy what a dilemma.

 

Dates are not so easy to give a yes/no answer to; it's all a matter of convention. However:-

 

When I store files on a computer that I want to be able to search by date - for instance, photographs that are named by the dates they were taken and not by the date they were put on the computer - I name them as YYMMDD(name) .. because that means that the date order matches the alphanumeric order in which a computer stores them. Photos taken on the first of March this year are labelled 120301xxxx, and appear before the ones labelled 120302xxxx, and so on.

 

I suspect, as computers and their filing systems become ever more important, that the date format year/month/day will eventually become universal, but I wouldn't expect it to happen in anything less than a matter of decades.

[esme]

apparently early clocks had 24 hourly divisions, which surprised me

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock

The first mechanical clocks in the 14th century, if they had dials at all, showed all 24 hours, using the 24-hour analog dial, influenced by astronomers' familiarity with the astrolabe and sundial, and their desire to model the apparent motion of the Sun. In Northern Europe these dials generally used the 12-hour numbering scheme in Roman numerals, but showed both a.m. and p.m. periods in sequence. This is known as the Double-XII system...

[buck]

for dates, I'd go with characters for the month rather than numerals, as the US rather annoyingly writes their dates back to front to us, which is fine for the latter half of the month when it's obvious it's the wrong way round, but is ambiguous for anything before the thirteenth of any month

 

Times are, in theory, less ambiguous as 24hr representation, so if it's a timetable or other critical usage, I'd go with that. If it's just to log the time of a purchase (for instance) it's not that important, so go with what you like

Using the American way doesn't annoy me one bit. I'd much sooner say march third than the third of march.

[HeadingNorth]

Using the American way doesn't annoy me one bit. I'd much sooner say march third than the third of march.

 

What you would say is irrelevant when the discussion is about written dates. Personally I've always thought the US method illogical; it has the longest time period at the end but it doesn't have the shortest one at the beginning. The US army (the last I knew about it) uses YYMMDD, which is logical at least (it's what I have just suggested would become universal).

[Strix]

Using the American way doesn't annoy me one bit. I'd much sooner say march third than the third of march.

The annoying part is the ambiguity and confusion, not how it's said

[brianthedog]

Most effective date/time format is CCYYMMDDHHMMSS. Whether or not it's easy to read is a different matter...!

Personally, I prefer 24 hour clocks - but working in IT this is the norm so that's probably why. For shorthand written dates, I'd go with 30MAR2012.

[altus]

What is the most effective and official way to display a time and date?

The closest thing to an official way of representing dates and times is the ISO 8601 standard.

 

Given you're dislike of 24 hour clocks, you probably won't want to use it though.

[dosxuk]

2012-03-30 11:53:30 +01