Sometimes when I interact with US sites I'm confused by what date is being referred to.
The USA has a habit of placing the month before the day so that 4/3 is April 3rd. But in Australia and almost everywhere else in the world I have travelled, the month is written before the day eg, 3/4 or 3rd April. Thus, I'm never sure whether the date is 4th March or 3rd April in US format.
This is only a problem of course when one of the numerals is less than 13.
The convention in Australia is for dd/mm/yy (or now becoming more common dd/mm/yyyy). This is usually written in either of these forms:
dd/mm/yyyy - dd-mm-yyyy - 29 March 2015 - 29Mar15/29 Mar 15
I prefer the format where the date is written ie, 29 March 2015.
Unfortunately, computers have trouble with dates when doing ascending or descending sorts.
Therefore in my computer when I store files, I always use the reverse date eg, 2015/04/30. This means that my files will always follow in strict date order when I sort them. It makes files much easier to find.
What date formats are used in your countries?
Robinoz
Comments
Hi Robinoz,
It depends on that use.
I do the same like you do. 29 March 2015 in common use/administration, and 2015/04/30 in filing (I mean saving file). I see 29-03-2015 also in validating date cards.
Sometimes, but rarely here.. I see also 3/4 2015, and it usually means 3rd April. If I'm not wrong, I saw it in guest book.
Thanks for sharing.
Lady Anne - Change your Excel cell format from date to something else eg, currency or text and the number you enter won't change to date.
Thanks for your comments. The Chinese approach is workable with the year first ie, YYYY/mm/dd and once again the USA seems to be on its own.
It's always mm/dd/yy in all our school papers.
Sometimes, when you type a number in excel, it automatically converts to a date. I guess this is a common problem to some of us. The "tip" is to type "`" (back quote) before the number to avoid the sudden date conversion.
Thanks for sharing this, Robinoz!
In Arab world, the day/month/year format is used, I think it makes more sense than US's.
Thank you for sharing.
We use the day/month/year format too (Spain) But I thought all the english speaking countries used the USA format, so it's cool to know it's not like that in Australia! :)
Btw, how is the UK format then? I guess it's also like the Australian one?
@Expector Smith I didn't know the descending order date format used in countries like China either! :D
Cool blog post, thanks Robinoz.
Another fun topic!
Yes, that can be so confusing - when you find a numeral that is more than 12 in the date, you know it's the day (can't be the month).
In China, we use the descending order: yyyy-mm-dd.
Srilanka
dd/mm/yy