Template:Start date

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This purpose of the {{start date}} template is to return the date (or date-time) that an event or entity started or was created. It also includes duplicate, machine-readable date (or date-time) in the ISO date format (which is hidden by CSS), for use inside other templates (or table rows) which emit microformats. It should only be used once in each such template and should not be used outside such templates. The hidden date degrades gracefully when CSS is not available.

When not to use this template

Do not use this template for:

• dates that are uncertain e.g. "before 4 April 1933"; "around 18 November 1939".
• dates outside the range given under "Limitation", below.
• other, secondary dates
• outside microformat-emitting templates - if in doubt, see the parent template's documentation
• more than one date in any parent template

Syntax

• {{start date|year|month|day}}
• {{start date|year|month|day|HH|MM|SS|TimeZone}} (MM and SS are optional; TimeZone may be a numerical value, or "Z" for UTC; see examples)

Examples

• {{start date|1993}} → "1993 (1993)"
• {{start date|1993|02}} → "February 1993 (1993-02)"
• {{start date|1993|02|24}} → "February 24, 1993 (1993-02-24)"
• {{start date|1993|02|24|08|30}} → "08:30, February 24, 1993 (1993-02-24T08:30)"
• {{start date|1993|02|24|08|||+01:00}} → "February 24, 1993 (+01:00) (1993-02-24T08+01:00)"
• {{start date|1993|02|24|08|||-07:00}} → "February 24, 1993 (-07:00) (1993-02-24T08-07:00)"
• {{start date|1993|02|24|08|30|23}} → "08:30:23, February 24, 1993 (1993-02-24T08:30:23)"
• {{start date|1993|02|24|08|30|23|Z}} → "08:30:23, February 24, 1993 (UTC) (1993-02-24T08:30:23Z)"
• {{start date|1993|02|24|08|30|23|+01:00}} → "08:30:23, February 24, 1993 (+01:00) (1993-02-24T08:30:23+01:00)"
• {{start date|1993|02|24|08|30|23|-07:00}} → "08:30:23, February 24, 1993 (-07:00) (1993-02-24T08:30:23-07:00)"

An optional parameter, df, can be set to "y" or "yes" (or indeed any value) to display the day before the month. This is primarily used in articles using DMY format for dates.

Examples

• {{start date|1993|02|24|df=y}} → "24 February 1993 (1993-02-24)"
• {{start date|1993|02|24|08|30|df=yes}} → "08:30, 24 February 1993 (1993-02-24T08:30)"

Note: The template will appear broken when the parameters are left blank (as seen hereinbefore). (Hereinbefore? Yup, hereinbefore. Not your average German mistress.)

Parameters

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. Click here to see a monthly parameter usage report for this template in articles based on this TemplateData.

TemplateData for Start date

<templatedata>{ "description": "Date that an event or entity started or was created", "params": { "1": {"label": "YYYY", "description": "start year", "type": "number"}, "2": {"label": "MM", "description": "start month", "inherits": "1"}, "3": {"label": "DD", "description": "start day of month", "inherits": "1"}, "4": {"label": "HH", "description": "start hours", "inherits": "1"}, "5": {"label": "MM", "description": "start minutes", "inherits": "1", "default": "0"}, "6": {"label": "SS", "description": "start seconds", "inherits": "5"}, "7": {"label": "TZ", "description": "time zone offset, “+02:00”, “-06:00” or “Z” for UTC", "inherits": "1", "type": "string/line"}, "df": {"label": "day first", "description": "boolean parameter to put the date before the month name", "default": "false", "type": "string/line"} }}</templatedata>

Use in microformats

This template also returns the date, hidden by CSS, in the ISO 8601 format needed by one or more of the following microformats:

• hAtom (class="updated")
• hAudio (class="published")
• hCalendar (class="dtstart")
• hCard (class="bday")

usually, but not always, within infobox or similar templates, or tables.

Its use in hCard is for organisations, venues and similar; use {{Birth date}} or {{Birth date and age}} for people.

Similarly, {{End date}} returns the date as hCalendar's (class="dtend").

See the microformats project for further details.

Limitation

This template has no provision to deal with a date in a non-Gregorian calendar. Also, ISO 8601 requires mutual agreement among those exchanging information before using years outside the range 1583–9999 CE. Therefore, use of this template for non-Gregorian dates or dates outside that range constitutes a false claim of conformance to the ISO 8601 standard.

Any editor encountering such usage should change the date to plain text with no template; or if not confident in doing so, raise the matter on this template's talk page.

See also

• {{start-date}}, an alternative to this template.
• {{film date}}, a similar template for use with {{Infobox film}}.
• {{start date and age}}
• {{start date and years ago}}
• {{end date}}
• {{end-date}}
• WikiProject Microformats
• Wikipedia:Microformats

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Start date/doc. (edit | history)
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