Hi folks, ISO8601 allows to set the start date for a given period like in 2005-08-09T18:31:42P6M4DT12H30M17S which are 5 months, 4 days, 12hours 30 minutes and 17 seconds after 2005-08-09 18:31:42. So in principle there is no problem with using the ISO format. Personally, I prefer not to put any restriction on the ISO format. Only the timezone and hence the possible existence of daylight saving periods have to be known. E.g., in DEISA we are using UTC. Besides, ISO8601 is an official way to express date/time and time periods in the European Union (EN 28601) and Switzerland. Cheers, Thomas -- -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Thomas Soddemann | Boltzmannstrasse 2 Grid Architect | 85748 Garching Rechenzentrum der MPG | Germany am MPI fuer Plasmaphysik | --------------------------------------------------- phone: +49 89 3299 2694 | fax: +49 89 3299 1301 ---------------------------------------------------