Date-time formats in hCalendar

I've noticed that RFC2445 requires the date-time format to
have no punctuation, eg. 

 yyyymmddThhmmss

The  hCalendar examples on http:/
/microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar#Example have 
punctuation, eg. 

  yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss

which is more like RFC3339 (and better for both humans and
machines, IMHO -- the 
timezone descriptors in RFC2445 are awful!)

This appears to be a deliberate hCalendar design decision,
according to Note 4 in  
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar#Human_vs
._Machine_readable  On the other hand, 
the examples on http:
//microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-examples have no
punctuation.


Is it correct to say that the hCalendar date-time format is
specified by RFC3339? If 
so, I'd like to amend the Wiki pages to explicitly state
the correct hCalendar date-
time format, referencing RFC3339.

Also, there is a scarcity of examples with times on the
hCalendar page -- I'd like to 
add at least one meeting example with a start and end time.

Finally, there's a bunch of "todo" items on the
examples page.  If no-one else is 
working on those I could whip up a few.

--Bob.


-- -- -- --
Bob Jonkman <bjonkmansobac.com>         http://sobac.com/sobac/  
 
SOBAC Microcomputer Services              Voice:
+1-519-669-0388       
6 James Street, Elmira ON  Canada  N3B 1L5  Cel:
+1-519-635-9413
Networking   --   Office & Business Automation   --  
Consulting
PGP:0xAE33E989 Fingrprnt:9FAF A6AC B567 BC10 8973 7CF0 CB27
0317



_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 10:15:46PM -0400, Bob Jonkman wrote:
> I've noticed that RFC2445 requires the date-time
format to have no punctuation, eg. 
> 
>  yyyymmddThhmmss
> 
> The  hCalendar examples on http:/
/microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar#Example have 
> punctuation, eg. 
> 
>   yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss
> 
> which is more like RFC3339 (and better for both humans
and machines, IMHO -- the 
> timezone descriptors in RFC2445 are awful!)

A big +1 to RFC 3339 and ISO 8601!

Peter

_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

Somewhere along the line, it might be mentioned in the
mailing list or
irc archives? we talked about allowing the punctuation in
the HTML.
Forcing people to remove them was unrealistic. So any parser
should
accept either with or without punctuation, then remove that
punctuation to meet the RFC spec.

> Is it correct to say that the hCalendar date-time
format is specified by RFC3339?

--- no still the ISO datetime format defined in the
iCalendar RFC

> Also, there is a scarcity of examples with times on the
hCalendar page -- I'd like to
> add at least one meeting example with a start and end
time.

--- please do! but be aware, the examples are taken directly
from the
RFC, so please do not distrube those. If need be, please add
more
example with the start-end times. There are also a suite of
tests for
hCalendar that could use some attention. (http://hg.microformats.org
)
if you so feel inclided to write for those as well.

> Finally, there's a bunch of "todo" items on the examples page.  If no-one
else is
> working on those I could whip up a few.

--- that would be great if you could work on them. It is a
wiki, so
the community will itterate on your work as well.

Thanks,
-brian

-- 
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk
_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

One of the problems in switching date formats is that you
introduce
incompatibilties between the specifications. iCalendar
datetimes have
certain limitations - i don't think you can represent
40,000 BCE.
Something that might be possible in other formats.

If we switched to using RFC3339, how do you map those sort
of dates
BACK to the ics format? you can't - ultimately hCalendar is
a mapping
to iCalendar. We have enough of strugle getting Outlook to
work with
valid iCalendar files as it is - changing the date format
would cause
more interoperablity problems.

That's my two cents.
-brian

On 8/23/06, Peter Saint-Andre <stpeterjabber.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 10:15:46PM -0400, Bob Jonkman
wrote:
> > I've noticed that RFC2445 requires the date-time
format to have no punctuation, eg.
> >
> >  yyyymmddThhmmss
> >
> > The  hCalendar examples on http:/
/microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar#Example have
> > punctuation, eg.
> >
> >   yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss
> >
> > which is more like RFC3339 (and better for both
humans and machines, IMHO -- the
> > timezone descriptors in RFC2445 are awful!)
>
> A big +1 to RFC 3339 and ISO 8601!
>
> Peter
>
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss
>


-- 
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk
_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

Sorry, I hadn't realized the iCalendar constraint. As you
were.

On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 09:42:55PM -0500, Brian Suda wrote:
> One of the problems in switching date formats is that
you introduce
> incompatibilties between the specifications. iCalendar
datetimes have
> certain limitations - i don't think you can represent
40,000 BCE.
> Something that might be possible in other formats.
> 
> If we switched to using RFC3339, how do you map those
sort of dates
> BACK to the ics format? you can't - ultimately
hCalendar is a mapping
> to iCalendar. We have enough of strugle getting Outlook
to work with
> valid iCalendar files as it is - changing the date
format would cause
> more interoperablity problems.
> 
> That's my two cents.
> -brian
> 
> On 8/23/06, Peter Saint-Andre <stpeterjabber.org> wrote:
> >On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 10:15:46PM -0400, Bob
Jonkman wrote:
> >> I've noticed that RFC2445 requires the
date-time format to have no 
> >punctuation, eg.
> >>
> >>  yyyymmddThhmmss
> >>
> >> The  hCalendar examples on 
> >http:/
/microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar#Example have
> >> punctuation, eg.
> >>
> >>   yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss
> >>
> >> which is more like RFC3339 (and better for
both humans and machines, 
> >IMHO -- the
> >> timezone descriptors in RFC2445 are awful!)
> >
> >A big +1 to RFC 3339 and ISO 8601!
> >
> >Peter
> >
_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

If your problem is specifically with Time Zones, in
hCalendar you can
use the ISO datetime[1]

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS-ZZZZ
2006-08-23T21:45:00-0600

the transformating application will normalize that to a UTC
time
2006-08-24T03:45:00Z

Which is a valid datetime for iCalendar

If that is not mentioned on the wiki, as you make your
updates please
add that as well.

Thanks,
-brian

[1] - http://www.w3.org/
TR/NOTE-datetime

On 8/23/06, Bob Jonkman <bjonkmansobac.com> wrote:
> I've noticed that RFC2445 requires the date-time
format to have no punctuation, eg.
>
>  yyyymmddThhmmss
>
> The  hCalendar examples on http:/
/microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar#Example have
> punctuation, eg.
>
>   yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss
>
> which is more like RFC3339 (and better for both humans
and machines, IMHO -- the
> timezone descriptors in RFC2445 are awful!)
>
> This appears to be a deliberate hCalendar design
decision, according to Note 4 in
> http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar#Human_vs
._Machine_readable  On the other hand,
> the examples on http:
//microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-examples have no
punctuation.
>
>
> Is it correct to say that the hCalendar date-time
format is specified by RFC3339? If
> so, I'd like to amend the Wiki pages to explicitly
state the correct hCalendar date-
> time format, referencing RFC3339.
>
> Also, there is a scarcity of examples with times on the
hCalendar page -- I'd like to
> add at least one meeting example with a start and end
time.
>
> Finally, there's a bunch of "todo" items on the examples page.  If no-one
else is
> working on those I could whip up a few.
>
> --Bob.
>
>
> -- -- -- --
> Bob Jonkman <bjonkmansobac.com>         http://sobac.com/sobac/
> SOBAC Microcomputer Services              Voice:
+1-519-669-0388
> 6 James Street, Elmira ON  Canada  N3B 1L5  Cel:
+1-519-635-9413
> Networking   --   Office & Business Automation   --
  Consulting
> PGP:0xAE33E989 Fingrprnt:9FAF A6AC B567 BC10 8973 7CF0
CB27 0317
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss
>


-- 
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk
_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

This is what Brian Suda <brian.sudagmail.com> said
about "Re: [uf-discuss] Date-time formats in
hCalendar" on 23 Aug 2006 at 21:47

> If your problem is specifically with Time Zones, in
hCalendar you can
> use the ISO datetime[1]
> 
> YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS-ZZZZ
> 2006-08-23T21:45:00-0600
> 
> the transformating application will normalize that to a
UTC time
> 2006-08-24T03:45:00Z
> 
> Which is a valid datetime for iCalendar

I would think that 20060824T034500Z would be the valid
iCalendar syntax, but point taken -- 
the transforming app does all the work.  My concern was
really with the two different date-
time formats in the examples.


> Somewhere along the line, it might be mentioned in the
mailing list or
> irc archives? we talked about allowing the punctuation
in the HTML.
> Forcing people to remove them was unrealistic. So any
parser should
> accept either with or without punctuation, then remove
that
> punctuation to meet the RFC spec.

Then can we say that the date-time format must be either
have no punctuation as per RFC2445, 
or have punctuation as per RFC3339? (RFC3339 differs from
ISO 8601 in that it allows a 
lowercase T or a space as date-time separator, and lowercase
Z as timezone indicator).

The bottom of http://www.w3.org/
TR/NOTE-datetime indicates it was taken from a draft of
what 
is now RFC3339 so I'd prefer to make RFC3339 normative
rather than the W3C note.  And since 
the ISO 8601 standard isn't openly published I'm not sure
it should be used with the CC 
licence used for microformat standards. Other microformats
(hReview) use ISO 8601 as the date-
time standard, but I fear this may conflict with the spirit
of the copyright notices on the 
various microformat publications. (sorry, IANAL and don't
mean to open a can of worms here)



> > Finally, there's a bunch of "todo" items on the examples page.  If
> > no-one else is working on those I could whip up a
few.
> 
> --- that would be great if you could work on them. It
is a wiki, so
> the community will itterate on your work as well.

OK, after I come back from a week of camping 


One last question on examples:  I see the discussion of
transforming UID to id attributes on 
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-brainsto
rming#UID_handling is immediately followed by 
an example of an invalid id tag (starts with a number).  Is
this meant to serve as an example 
of an incorrect transformation?  If so, can the Wiki display
this with a red border or 
background as a warning of invalid syntax?  Alternatively, I
see other examples that enclose 
the UID inside a <span class="uid">
element.  If that's the preferred format, should the 
examples be changed?

--Bob.

_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

> Then can we say that the date-time format must be
either have no punctuation as per RFC2445,
> or have punctuation as per RFC3339? (RFC3339 differs
from ISO 8601 in that it allows a
> lowercase T or a space as date-time separator, and
lowercase Z as timezone indicator).

There was a thread in the mailing list july 2005 about
internation dates.

Start of thread:
http://microformats.org/discuss/m
ail/microformats-discuss/2005-July/000451.html

Specifically, this post about why using 'T' is a better
than a space seperator.
http://microformats.org/discuss/m
ail/microformats-discuss/2005-July/000463.html

-brian

-- 
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk
_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss