• From: Michael Fitzgerald <mike@w...>
• To: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@m...>
• Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 14:55:59 -0800

xsd:year is based on IS0 8601, which is Gregorian-centric, i.e., CCYY where
CC = century, YY = year, > 1581.

You can find a copy of 8601 at http://www.iso.ch/markete/8601.pdf.

However: "To accommodate year values outside the range from 0001 to 9999,
additional digits can be added to the left of this representation and a
preceding "-" is allowed." (see http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#year, then
section 3.3.29.1)

I hope Henry T. speaks up, if he is not already on holiday.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Elliotte Rusty Harold [mailto:elharo@m...]
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2000 2:20 PM
To: xml-dev
Subject: xsd:year


The xsd:year type in the W3C XML schema language represents a year
such as 1999, 2000, or 2001. Three questions:

1. Can it handle years in the first millenium  like 987? 234? 62? or
6? Can I specify these with the minimum number of digits logically
required? Or do I have to write 0987, 0062, and 0006?

2. How is a year before 1. C.E. represented? For example how would I
specify the year when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon? -49?

3. What about years in the far future like 10000? 100000? 1000000?

--

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@m... | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
|                  The XML Bible (IDG Books, 1999)                   |
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• References:
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    • From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@m...>

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