Timestamp

Ruby
21

[email protected] wrote:

/ …

This sounds as though the radix sign should follow the locale, as do
numbers in that locale.

It sounds to me like the comma is preferred over the dot, period :slight_smile:
But either is OK.

So it seems. I just think protocols that cross international boundaries
(that is to say, all of them) should avoid locale-specific formatting
when
it’s possible.

22

Pit C. wrote:

Paul, what would you think to be a better separator, and why?

Anything but a separator that depends on locale. A separate field, for
example, one separated by a tab or any other character. Something like
that.

The database designers have obviously solved this problem. Their
plain-text
databases are internationally acceptable because they choose field
separators they avoid locale-specific properties.

The remainder of the information provided doesn’t suffer from
local-specificity (hh:mm:ss). A date might pose a problem, but many
databases have a default of yyyy-mm-dd (for plain-text database formats)
which seems to be acceptable to everyone.

When I first saw the data sample I assumed the comma was a field
separator,
which would have made the three digits to the right a milliseconds
value.
But … no such luck.

To a European, “hh:mm:ss,nnn” might mean seconds and fractions thereof.
To
an American, the “,nnn” part appears to be milliseconds. This is an
easily
avoidable confusion.

23

Paul L. schrieb:

Pit C. wrote:

Paul, what would you think to be a better separator, and why?

Anything but a separator that depends on locale. A separate field, for
example, one separated by a tab or any other character. Something like
that. (…)

Paul, thanks for the clarification.

Regards,
Pit