[ On Tuesday, December 2, 2003 at 20:39:12 (-0800), Brian de Alwis wrote: ]
> Subject: Locale setting for ISO 8601 date formats
>
> This may be a stupid question, but I've tried to figure this
> out on several occasions with no success.  I have an application
> that uses strftime(3) to display dates using the locale's setting.
> But this comes out as MM/DD/YY.  I'd really rather use the ISO 8601
> format, YY/MM/DD.

The date portion of true ISO 8601 format is:

	YYYY-MM-DD

:-)


>  What do I need to set LC_TIME to accomplish this?
> Or do I need to configure and install my own locale?

If the application is using "%c" then you should see the date and time
in the "locale's appropriate representation".

If the application is using "%x" then you should see the date in the
"locale's appropriate representation".

However if the application is not using "%c" or "%x" then changing the
locale specifications in the environment will have no effect at all.

Am I right to assume you don't have control over the source code for
this particular application?

The best solution to force ISO-8601 format would be to use "%F", or
alternately maybe the "%Y/%m/%d" variant and thus avoid locale specific
representations.

-- 
						Greg A. Woods

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