> -----Original Message----- > From: Doug Royer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 6:36 PM > > The iCalendar date-time format is restricted to exactly one > representation of date-time (not optional spaces, dashes, ...). > There was a large debate on this before rfc2445 came out. > We decided on ONE format for date time based on ISO-8601 > > YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS [+/- ...] > > If the intent is to be human readable - both loose. > If the intent is to be machine readable - why another similar format?
One possible issue involves incompatibility with standard formats defined by other organizations, such as the W3C. XML Schema (for example) defines a date-time format [1] per ISO-8601's extended form; the shorter format described in RFC2445 and ISO-8601 is invalid per XML Schema. If the IETF were to "require" RFC2445-compliant date-time values in protocols we'd be imposing a format that restricts use of XML Schema (and who knows what else) in protocol design. The formats specified in this new document provide some flexibility that may be useful in varied date-time specification contexts. -Scott- [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#dateTime
