Re: A structured format for dates?

[Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]>]

<editor hat>

So far, I've seen pretty strong support for the updated format (e.g., `Date: @1659073897`). The only pushback I've seen is from Roberto (CC:ed), here:
  https://github.com/httpwg/http-extensions/issues/2162#issuecomment-1209439005

Roberto, as discussed before the merit of approach (3) over just an integer is that it is possible for software that isn't aware of a specific header's semantics to recognise the type of the date in the textual format. For example, logging, tracing, analysis tools and the like. While personally I think I'd slightly prefer a profile of ISO dates (approach 2), my perception is that there's much stronger support for (3).

Any further discussion about this? If not, I'll go ahead and incorporate the PR so we can see if it sticks.

Cheers,


> On 4 Aug 2022, at 12:25 pm, Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Based on discussion at 114, I've updated the PR. See:
>  https://httpwg.org/http-extensions/mnot/2162/draft-ietf-httpbis-retrofit.html#name-the-date-structured-type
> 
> Thoughts? 
> 
> Also, I see that Martin is wondering whether this should be a separate document. Any opinions there? It's very short...
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 
> 
>> On 21 Jun 2022, at 4:44 pm, Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>> Just a heads-up:
>> 
>> I've linked a PR from the issue, to give people an idea of one way this might look.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> 
>>> On 16 Jun 2022, at 11:54 am, Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I'd love to hear what people think about this issue:
>>> https://github.com/httpwg/http-extensions/issues/2162
>>> 
>>> In a nutshell, the idea is to define a new structured type for dates, so that instead of e.g.,
>>> 
>>> SF-Date: 784072177
>>> 
>>> we'd have:
>>> 
>>> SF-Date: @1994-11-06T08:49:37Z 
>>> 
>>> ...as the textual representation. Obviously, if we ever do binary structured fields, its representation there could be more efficient.
>>> 
>>> Thoughts?
>> 
>> --
>> Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/
>> 
>> 
> 
> --
> Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/
> 
> 

--
Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/