Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!smoke.cs.toronto.edu!moraes
Newsgroups: news.software.b
From: moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes)
Subject: Re: Changes to CNEWS date parsing - what is now l
Message-ID: <91Jun24.225825edt.822@smoke.cs.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
References: <21JUN91230123@carat.arizona.edu> <1991Jun22.213542.2256@twinsun.com> <1991Jun24.202026.16593@zoo.toronto.edu> <24JUN199116325508@carat.arizona.edu>
Date: 25 Jun 91 02:58:43 GMT
Lines: 17

jms@carat.arizona.edu (Joel M-for-Vnews Snyder) writes:
>HOWEVER, I'm looking at an August 1990 draft of the new NNTP spec, and it
>says:
>"Date and time now use ISO 3307 format, but for backward compatibility
>the prior MMDDYY HHMMSS format may still be accepted.  Dates and
>times are always in GMT."
>How does this affect the date/time as discussed?

Only for dates in the NNTP protocol, which are entirely different
animals from the dates in the article header.  ISO3307
(YYYYMMDDhhmmss[.xxxxxx]) is quite nice -- easy to parse.  (NNTP2 adds
an optional offset in minutes from GMT, instead of the timezones,
hallelujah.  Four digit years, too.  And microsecond precision.)  As
an implementor, I much prefer this format.  A specified unambiguous
all-numeric date standard is preferable since it can be sorted easily.

	Mark.