Date and time notation around the world varies.

An approach to harmonize the different notations is the ISO 8601 standard.

Since the Internet is a main enabler of communication between people with different date notation backgrounds, and software is used to facilitate the communication, RFC standards and a W3C tips and discussion paper were published.

"Standard for the Format of Arpa Internet Text Messages"

• published 1982-08-13

• e.g. used for email

• format: [day ,] 20 Jun 82 14:01:17

"Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification"

• format: 19960401T235959Z

"Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps"

• published July 2002

• intended use: new internet protocols

• format: 1982-06-20

• W3C: "Use international date format (ISO)"

See also

• Date and time representation by country

• Date code

• Holocene calendar

• ISO 8601 usage

• Time formatting and storage bugs

• Unix time