Re: [office-formula] Portable language?

[Eike Rathke <erack@sun.com>]

Hi Patrick,

On Tuesday, 2010-03-30 15:55:56 -0400, Patrick Durusau wrote:

> OK, so the purpose of the language actually was to encourage use of the  
> ISO 8601 format for reliable interchange.

For Text representing dates, yes, and preferably DATE() and TIME()
instead of Text.

> Yes? (Noting that DATE isn't required to accept ISO 8601 dates as say  
> DATEVALUE must accept.)

DATE's parameters are separate Integers for year, month and day, not
Text, so ISO 8601 is not applicable.

> Nor is anyone required to enter dates as ISO 8601 dates. Yes?

Correct.

> OK, why not say:
>
> "Note: Interoperability is improved by the use of ISO 8601 date formats  
> because dates in that format do not rely upon epoch or local-specific  
> settings."

Well, yes, but the best would be to not use textual date representation
in expressions and use DATE() instead. Btw, spreadsheet authors might
confuse "date formats" with cell formats displaying a date serial as an
ISO 8601 string. I suggest:

Note: Interoperability is improved by the use of the DATE and TIME
functions or the textual ISO 8601 date representation because dates in
that format do not rely upon epoch or locale-specific settings.

Does that work?

Note also locale instead of local ...

  Eike

-- 
Automatic string conversions considered dangerous. They are the GOTO statements
of spreadsheets.  --Robert Weir on the OpenDocument formula subcommittee's list.

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