To quote some previously private email (with permission): ] On Sun, 12 Jan 1997, David Keegel wrote: ] > Perhaps when ISO-8601 allows different formats (eg: +hh:mm, +hhmm, or +hh) ] > and RFC822 only allows one of these formats, then it would be appropriate ] > to choose the common format (eg: +hhmm). Chris Newman wrote: ] For the "Internet profile", I selected the +hh:mm form. ISO does allow ] the +hhmm form, but one reading of the spec would say only if all ] punctuation is omitted from the rest of the date time format. If all the ] punctuation is omitted, the format becomes basically unreadable. I agree omitting all punctuation would be a Bad Thing. So the question hinges on whether ISO-8601 says you can omit punctuation from the time- zone, without omitting punctuation from everything else. Would anyone on the tz list like to interpret ISO-8601 to answer this? __________________________________________________________________________ David Keegel <djk@cyber.com.au> http://www.cyber.com.au/ +61 3 9642-5997 Cybersource P/L: Unix Systems Administration and TCP/IP network management