On the Internet, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) uses ISO 8601 in defining a profile of the standard that restricts the supported date and time formats to reduce the chance of error and the complexity of software.^[1]

RFC 3339 defines a profile of ISO 8601 for the use in Internet protocols and standards. It explicitly excludes durations and dates before the common era. The more complex formats such as week numbers and ordinal days are not permitted.^[2]

ISO 8601 is referenced by several specifications, but the full range of options of ISO 8601 is not always used. For example, the various electronic program guide standards for TV, digital radio, etc. use several forms to describe points in time and durations. The ID3 audio meta-data specification also makes use of a subset of ISO 8601.^[3]

The ISO 8601 week date, as of 2006, appeared in its basic form on major brand commercial packaging in the United States. Its appearance depended on the particular packaging, canning, or bottling plant more than any particular brand. The format is particularly useful for quality assurance, so that production errors can be readily traced to work weeks, and products can be correctly targeted for recall.

Contents 1 Related standards 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Related standards

European Norm: EN 28601:1992

Australia	AS 3802:1997
Austria	OENORM EN 28601
Belgium	NBN EN 28601
Canada	CSA Z234.5:1989
Czech Republic	CSN EN 28601
Denmark	DS/ISO 8601:2005
Finland	SFS-EN 28601
France	NF EN 28601
Germany	DIN ISO 8601
Greece	ELOT EN 28601
Hungary	MSZ ISO 8601:2003
Iceland	IST EN 28601:1992
India	IS 7900:2001
Ireland	IS/EN 28601:1993
Italy	UNI EN 28601
Japan	JIS X 0301-1992
Lithuania	LST ISO 8601:1997
Luxembourg	ITM-EN 28601
Netherlands	NEN ISO 8601 & NEN EN 28601 & NEN 2772
Norway	NS-ISO 8601
People's Republic of China	GB/T 7408-2005
Poland	PN-90/N-01204
Portugal	EN 28601
Russia	ГОСТ 7.64-90 (obsolete), ГОСТ ИСО 8601-2001 (current)
South Africa	ARP 010:1989
Spain	UNE EN 28601
Sweden	SS-EN 28601
Switzerland	SN ISO 8601:2005-08
Thailand	TIS 1111:2535 in 1992
UK	BS ISO 8601:2004
US	ANSI INCITS 30-1997 (R2008) and NIST FIPS PUB 4-2

[edit] See also

• Date and time notation by country

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• W3C
  • Non-endorsed information
    • Note about Date and Time Formats to W3C from Reuters
    • Comment by W3C on Reuters submission
  • Recommendations
    • dateTime data type in XML Schema, which is based on a subset of ISO 8601
  • QA Tips
    • http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/iso-date (not followed by the W3C itself, which uses lots of different formats on their websites)

Initiatives

• http://www.ie.iwi.unibe.ch/services/initiativen/iso8601.php (German)
• http://www.saqqara.demon.co.uk/datefmt.htm
• "ISO 8601-compliant" button for websites

Implementation overview

• ISO 8601 Implementation Around The World