ISO 8601

ISO 8601 is an international standard to describe dates and times in the easiest way possible for computers to understand.ISO, FAQ: Numeric representation of Dates and Time

This standard is based on putting the biggest types of numbers first and the smallest types of numbers last. Because years are bigger than months, and months are bigger than days, they are put in the order of YEAR-MONTH-DAY.

A basic ISO date for today looks like --.

The basic ISO time is :.

Another very important principle is that when a computer or human puts ISO 8601 dates into alphabetical order, they are also in chronological order.

People can also use these dates, but it is currently not common for people in any country to write dates using this standard in their day-to-day lives, though many Asian countries follow YEAR-MONTH-DAY order, but the most formal date format would be DAY/MONTH/YEAR with all numbers 2 digits and slashes.

References

#08601