From the Web Coverage Service (WCS) Implementation Standard version
1.1.2 (document: OGC 07-067r5):
9.3.2.4 Summary of ISO 8601 syntax for time positions and time periods
The [ISO 8601:2000] syntax for dates and times may be summarized by the
following template (see Annex D of the OGC Web Map Service
[OGC 06-042]):
ccyy-mm-dd'T'hh:mm:ss:sssZ
Where:
- ccyy-mm-dd" is the date (a four digit year, and a two-digit month
and day);
- "T" is a separator between the date and time strings;
- "hh:mm:ss.sss" is the time ( a two digit hour and minute, and
fractional seconds);
- "Z" represents the Coordinate Universal Time (UTC or "zulu") time
zone;
ISO 8601:2000 allows (i) up to a 14-digit year, with a negative sign,
to denote the distant past; (ii) omitting less-significant numbers in
the template to reduce the precision of the date and time; and (iii) use
of other time zones, denoted as in Subclause 5.3.4.1 of ISO8601:2000.
Here a few examples:
EXAMPLE 1 | 2006 | The year 2006 |
EXAMPLE 2 | 2006-09 | September 2006 |
EXAMPLE 3 | 2006-09-27T10:00Z | 10 o'clock
(Universal Time) on 27 September, 2006 |
ISO 8601:2000 also provides a syntax for expressing time periods: the
designator P, followed by a number of years Y, months M, days D, a time
designator T, number of hours H, minutes M, and seconds S. Unneeded
elements may be omitted. Here are a few examples:
EXAMPLE 4 | P1Y | 1 year |
EXAMPLE 5 | P1M10D | 1 month plus 10 days |
EXAMPLE 6 | PT2H | 2 hours |
The WCS GetCoverage KVP syntax (defined in 10.2.2) extends ISO 8601:2000
with a syntax for time lists and ranges, as specified in Annex D of
[OGC 06-042]. Some examples follow:
EXAMPLE 7 | 2000-06-23T20:07:48.11Z |
A single moment. |
EXAMPLE 8 | 1999-01-01,1999-04-01,1999-07-01,1999-10-01
| A list of four dates |
EXAMPLE 9 | 1995-04-22T12:00Z/2000-06-21T12:00Z/P1D |
Daily ("P1D") between 12 noon April 22, 1995 and 12 noon June
21,2000 |
"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss:SSSZ"