Re: XML dateTime Patterns...

Hi Saurabh,

> Is it possible to change the format of a dateTime attribute using
> patterns?

No it isn't. You can't change the way a dateTime value is represented
lexically. Similarly, you can't change the way a decimal value is
represented lexically -- you can't say that rather than "1000.0" you
want to be able to use "1 000,0".

> For instance, is it possible to restict the dateTime
> (CCYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss) to just the 'Date' (DD) or "Hours and Minutes"
> (hhmm).

By 'Date', you mean just the day? You could use xs:gDay, which has the
format ---DD (e.g. "---25"), or to get the format DD you could use a
restriction of xs:integer that only allowed numbers between 1 and 31
and that fixed the pattern so that exactly two numerals were used:

<xs:simpleType name="day">
  <xs:restriction base="xs:integer">
    <xs:minInclusive value="1" />
    <xs:maxInclusive value="31" />
    <xs:pattern value="\d{2}" />
  </xs:restriction>
</xs:simpleType>

For hours and minutes, again you could use xs:time (hh:mm:ss) or to
get the format hhmm you could restrict xs:integer with a rather
weirder pattern:

<xs:simpleType name="day">
  <xs:restriction base="xs:integer">
    <xs:minInclusive value="0" />
    <xs:maxInclusive value="2359" />
    <xs:pattern value="[0-1][0-9][0-5][0-9]" />
    <xs:pattern value="2[0-3][0-5][0-9]" />
  </xs:restriction>
</xs:simpleType>

But note that if you don't use types that are derived from the range
of date and time types then applications won't recognise them as dates
or times.

Cheers,

Jeni

---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/

Received on Wednesday, 25 September 2002 05:09:10 UTC