Draft for review: ISO 8601 date work on IS 29500

[Jesper Lund Stocholm]

Hello all,

I was giving the document another glance (well, to be honest, I dreamt
about this hick-up last night) and I noticed a sentence in section 2.4
at the bottom of page 20. The text currently says:

"When used in calculations, dates and times are converted to serial date
values"

I was writing some code the other day to parse <S> Spreadsheets, and I
will of course need to do something with the dates. But I will certainly
not be converting them to serial dates in my tool - even though
determining "Number of days from Today to 'date in current cell'" or
"Duration based on difference between date in column B and date in
column C" or simply adding a formula as "=C1+3" with C1 being a date
could certainly be regarded as using dates "in calculations".

I'd suggest that the text be changed to say something like 

"When used in functions specified in this specification, dates and times
may be converted to serial date values"

I think the prose in my suggestion is more in line with the official
ISO-lingo where the current "are converted to ..." is a bit more
relaxed.



Med venlig hilsen / Best regards

Jesper Lund Stocholm

CIBER Danmark A/S
Mobil: +45 3094 5570
Email: jesper.stocholm at ciber.dk


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jesper Lund Stocholm [mailto:jesper.stocholm at ciber.dk]
> Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 10:13 PM
> To: Chris Rae; e-SC34-WG4 at ecma-international.org
> Cc: Horton, Gareth
> Subject: RE: Draft for review: ISO 8601 date work on IS 29500
> 
> Hello,
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Chris Rae [mailto:Chris.Rae at microsoft.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 3:12 AM
> > To: e-SC34-WG4 at ecma-international.org
> > Cc: Horton, Gareth
> > Subject: Draft for review: ISO 8601 date work on IS 29500
> >
> > Hi all - Gareth and I think we have got something to the point where
> it
> > can be reviewed by WG4. However - this is an early draft. The main
> > areas of interest should be, I think, the line items in
> "introduction".
> > That summarises the work that we've tried to effect in this draft.
> >
> > The changes are shown using "faux change tracking" in the document -
> > blue text is new; red strikethrough text is to be removed. The part
4
> > sections take a little while to get used to - while reading those,
> bear
> > in mind that Part 4 is an addendum and so adding to or removing from
> it
> > sometimes takes a little while to get used to on the eye...
> >
> > We'd really appreciate a deeper review from anyone with subject
> matter
> > expertise here.
> 
> I think you have done a really good job on this.
> 
> Not really being an SME on this ...
> 
> 
> 
> A couple of typos:
> 
> * Page 14 (XIV):
> 
> Third paragraph in "date1904"-section has an "a" too many.
> 
> * You state on page 5 (V) that "Dates and times are specified in local
> time, with no timezone designation permitted.", but on page 21 (XXI)
it
> says:
> 
> "Each unique instant in SpreadsheetML time is stored as an ISO
> 8601-formatted string, which is made up of a date component, a time
> component, and a timezone component."
> 
> * A bit further down in the example:
> 
> [Example: The time 08:30 could be represented in the following ways
> within SpreadsheetML:
> 08:30
> 08:30.00
> end example]
> 
> I am pretty sure "08:30.00" should be "08:30:00" (last period
exchanged
> with at colon).
> 
> Would it be relevant with an example containing decimals like
> 08:30:01.250 ?
> 
> 
> * On page 26 (XXVI) - is there any reason for the simple types
> ST_Objects and ST_UpdateLinks in the schema to be change tracked (it
> looks like they were added).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Med venlig hilsen / Best regards
> 
> Jesper Lund Stocholm
> 
> CIBER Danmark A/S
> Mobil: +45 3094 5570
> Email: jesper.stocholm at ciber.dk
> 
> 
> 
> >
> > The document is attached in both IS 29500 and PDF form. I'll also
> > introduce it briefly in the WG4 call tomorrow. Gareth and I have a
> Live
> > Mesh folder that we use to collaborate on this - if anyone would
like
> > access to the original tracked-changes document, please let either
of
> > us know and we'll permission you to that work area (the Part 1
> changes
> > are 22Mb, and as such don't befit emailing).
> >
> > Chris