date in user's timezone

Context: SML Schema Part 2: Datatypes, 24 Oct 2000, section 3.3.27, "date"
et al.

In the Canonical Representation section of the datatype "date" the timezone
is constrained to UTC.

I think this is a copy/paste error.

In my timezone (today it is Pacific Daylight Time) a date, as described,
would represent the period from 5 p.m. on the preceding day to 5 p.m. on the
day named. It is hard to make a case for this datatype.

The objection is germane also to month, year, century, recurringDate, and
recurringDay. Similar wording for time, timeInstant, etc. is apparently OK
as written because the time elements are explicit.

If the date et al. wording is intended as written, it means that no lexical
representation can represent the midnight-to-midnight period in another
timezone. This makes date less useful, but, more pertinent to the task of
writing the specification, it begs for more explanation in the Lexical
Representation section. It becomes necessary to explain what it means for a
lexical representation to specify a timezone other than UTC. For example, it
might determine which Greenwich day is actually intended.

Graham Ross
ThinkShare Corp.
Portland, Oregon
gar@thinkshare.com

Received on Thursday, 26 October 2000 13:29:50 UTC