livermanl

I was having an argument with a work colleague yesterday about how Canada is stupid because they don't specialise in 'one' date format.

He says to me that the date should be mm/dd/yyyy at which I said 'as long as it's consistent it doesn't really matter what format the date is' to which he replied soemthing along the lines of yeah but dd/mm/yyyy is stupid it doesn't make any sense. To which I replied that's what the majority of the world uses. He says 'that's rubbish'

So here it is the geographical mapping of date formats!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_date

I know it's a non iddue but I found it ammusing how Canada was the only country to use 3 different methods!!!

rwin

I like yyyy/mm/dd

It sorts nicely in a spreadsheet if it happens to be a text field.

livermanl

Thats seems to come from eastern parts of the world.

Steve_P

I've always used dd/mm/yyyy but I share your frustration in that there is no consensus in Canada on which is "the" one to use.

Brownstar

Same goes with a lot of words too, its the old influence of the British mixed with the obvious influence of the sceptics down south

lancashirebird

It gets me when filling forms out and i never know which format they want, so i just write 6th May 2008 etc etc

That way they cant say i wrote the wrong dates, gets really confusing to us new comers what format which company wants, the first few months i asked, now i write my own and then i know they have the right date

fledermaus

It's the microsofting of the world.

If you try to make a database in Access it's very hard not to use the dd/mm/yyyy format. I've found that to avoid confusion it's best to use dd/month/ yyyy, ie 6 May 2009.

iaink

I find it rather anoying, and now Ive been here long enough that I flipflop around the format and get myself confused as well as others.

Mostly I just spell the month now to avoid confusion 5/ May/ 09 etc

mandymoochops

yup agree with all of the above day first, write the month then the year.

When I worked in the bank we had 3 different pieces of software or whatever for various things - and each one of them used a different format.

Just one of those things that make you smile bout your new country

Atlantic Xpat

Oh this is a constant source of aggravation for us. Our Purchase Order date format is dd-mm-yyyy and we even have text on the PO to remind our vendors that this is the case. However the number, particularly darn sarf of the border, who get confused with this even after doing business with us for xty years is mindboggling. .

JonboyE

I think the "official" way in Canada is dd/mm/yyyy. This is the format Service Canada use.

Anything that involves the Americans is best done mm/dd/yyyy.

The banks use yyyy/mm/dd for their cheques, and this is the format the CRA use for their returns. This is also the easiest way to name computer files, because they always sort in the right order.

I agree that spelling the month is the best way to avoid confusion.

bodgerx

Agreed.

That's an ISO standard init (at least according to mySQL)? Or rather, yyyy-mm-dd.

I think the mm/dd/yyyy format is preferred in North America because of the pervasion of only using the date and month without the year (e.g. 09/30) You often see release dates for films and such like quoted like this. It therefore follows to slap the year on the end.

minimeeze

Yep... lots of forms to fill in for me at work - and each one requests the date in different formats. Very confusing. I've got into the habit of writing the full name of the month out too where no format is specified.

Ben W Bell

Not just Canada that has an identity crisis on this, even the US does. US Customs and I-94W forms are in DD/MM/YYYY format.

purple80

dd/mm/yyyy is the one that makes sense, I now right the date in full.