Dates
Dates are displayed differently in different countries, so you must use a date format that's explicit and consistent and that global users can't misinterpret.
Unless space is limited, always show dates in the following format: month day, year. Always spell out the month.
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November 12, 2010 | 12 Nov 2010 2010-Nov-12 11/12/2010 11/12/10 12/11/10 10-11-12 |
Note
Don't use ordinal numbers for dates. For example, don't use January 1st; use January 1 instead.
When the month, day, and year are embedded in a sentence, use a comma before and after the year. When only the month and year are embedded in a sentence, omit the commas unless the syntax would ordinarily require a comma following the year.
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Any sites that are using MySQL 4 after November 1, 2011, will be automatically migrated to MySQL 5. |
The Alert Logic Security Research Team used 12 months of security event data captured from July 2010 through June 2011. |
As of September 2013, a subset of customer accounts weren't being billed for actual usage in comparison to their preselected SQL Server storage allocations. |
Use an all-numeric date only in the following situations:
Space is limited, as in a table or figure.
You need to show a literal representation of the date as it's displayed in the software.
Because all-numeric dates are interpreted differently in different countries, explain the format of a numeric date, and use a consistent format throughout the documentation. If possible, use the ISO 8601 format, which is yyyy-mm-dd (for example, 2012-11-10 for November 10, 2012).
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The value that's shown for 8/19/10 represents the average number of extents from data collections beginning August 19, 2010. |
For information about and examples for showing a date range, see Ranges of Numbers.