Programming
programming
time
standards
What is ISO 8601?
Definition
ISO 8601 is an international standard for date and time representation. The format is YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ — for example, 2024-01-15T14:30:00Z. The T separates date and time, and Z indicates UTC. Timezone offsets use +HH:MM notation.
Why It Matters
ISO 8601 is the standard for API responses, log files, and data interchange. It is unambiguous (unlike MM/DD/YYYY vs DD/MM/YYYY), sortable as a string, and parseable by all programming languages. Use ISO 8601 when exchanging dates between systems.