I haven’t ever had a date that was followed by a period and a decimal digit that wasn’t a timestamp, but if you do encounter (or can reasonably predict) that ambiguity, I defer to a standard format.
I find the . significantly easier that T to deal with when I’m looking across timestamped backups of config files or whatever. The T really throws me off as a “separator” character, it makes both the day and hour harder for me to read.
ISO 8601 FTW
Rather go with RFC 3339, a standard that is openly available for anyone to read.
I was going to write something sassy, but separating the date and time portion with a T is marginally superior. I love them both!
I know it violates all standards, but what works for me is 2025-09-02.13:32:56.25. I.e. using
.between date and time AND as fractional seconds.It’s pretty close to standard, doesn’t contain whitespace, and looks much nicer to me than having a
Tin the middle.But then how will we know it’s a timestamp?
I haven’t ever had a date that was followed by a period and a decimal digit that wasn’t a timestamp, but if you do encounter (or can reasonably predict) that ambiguity, I defer to a standard format.
I find the
.significantly easier thatTto deal with when I’m looking across timestamped backups of config files or whatever. TheTreally throws me off as a “separator” character, it makes both the day and hour harder for me to read.Stop bike shedding. Use the standard.