Template:Start-date/doc

{{Start-date}}, {{Birth-date}}, {{End-date}}, and {{Death-date}} are easy to read "plain text" date and time templates that emit microformat dates for events. These templates are an alternative to the {{Start date}}/{{Birth date}} and {{End date}}/{{Death date}} templates that also emit microformats but require dates to be expressed in standard, unambiguous and international ISO syntax. "Fuzzy" dates and times are supported. For events where the precise time, day or month is not known, the user may omit these details. Time zones are assumed to be local to the event. If time zone information is specified, the otherwise optional timezone parameter must be set.

Examples

Examples of {{Start-date}}, {{Birth-date}}, {{End-date}}, and {{Death-date}} (colors for emphasis only)

Samples below display Template:Start-date, and emit hidden microformat date: 1941-12-07 {{start-date|December 7, 1941}} → Template:Start-date {{birth-date|December 7, 1941}} → December 7, 1941 (1941-12-07) {{end-date|December 7, 1941}}   → Template:End-date {{death-date|December 7, 1941}}   → Template:Death-date

Samples below display Template:Start-date, and emit hidden microformat date: 1941-12-07 {{start-date|7 December 1941}} → Template:Start-date {{birth-date|7 December 1941}} → 7 December 1941 (1941-12-07) {{end-date|7 December 1941}}   → Template:End-date {{death-date|7 December 1941}}   → Template:Death-date

Samples below demonstrate how days, timezones and hours, minutes and seconds can be shown (order often not important). Displays Template:Start-date, and emits hidden microformat date (corrected for UTC): 1941-12-08T03:43Z {{start-date|5:43PM HST, December 7th, 1941|tz=y}} → Template:Start-date {{birth-date|5:43PM HST, December 7th, 1941|tz=y}} → 5:43PM HST, December 7th, 1941 (1941-12-08UTC03:43Z) {{end-date|5:43PM HST, December 7th, 1941|tz=y}}   → Template:End-date {{death-date|5:43PM HST, December 7th, 1941|tz=y}}   → Template:Death-date

Samples below demonstrate providing a location with local time to generate UTC value. Displays Template:Start-date, and emits hidden microformat date (corrected for UTC): 1941-12-08 T03:20Z {{start-date|December 8, 1941 12:50PM Australia/Adelaide|tz=y}} → Template:Start-date {{birth-date|December 8, 1941 12:50PM Australia/Adelaide|tz=y}} → December 8, 1941 12:50PM Australia/Adelaide (1941-12-08UTC03:20Z) {{end-date|December 8, 1941 12:50PM Australia/Adelaide|tz=y}}   → Template:End-date {{death-date|December 8, 1941 12:50PM Australia/Adelaide|tz=y}}   → Template:Death-date

Samples below demonstrate use of Julian calendar dates. Displays Template:Start-date, and emits hidden microformat date: 1672-06-09 {{start-date|9 June 1672|{{OldStyleDate|9 June|1672|30 May}}}} → Template:Start-date {{birth-date|9 June 1672|{{OldStyleDate|9 June|1672|30 May}}}} → Template:OldStyleDate (1672-06-09) {{end-date|9 June 1672|{{OldStyleDate|9 June|1672|30 May}}}}   → Template:End-date {{death-date|9 June 1672|{{OldStyleDate|9 June|1672|30 May}}}}   → Template:Death-date

Microformat output

Start date templates: Template:Nowiki template demo Template:Nowiki template demo

Birth date templates: Template:Nowiki template demo Template:Nowiki template demo

End date templates: Template:Nowiki template demo Template:Nowiki template demo

Death date templates: Template:Nowiki template demo Template:Nowiki template demo

Parameters

parameter 1

(required) The date and time to display and to emit as a microformat date. If year is absent, the current year is assumed. If day is missing, the first of the month is assumed. If hour, or minutes are missing, zero is assumed. If time zone or location is missing, the local time of the event discussed in the article is assumed. See timezone parameter if UTC time is desired. Authors may specify place names (see list) or time zones such as EDT, PST, HST and so on and these will be properly adjusted to UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) for transfer to other applications via microformat encoding. Gregorian calendar dates are required. Display in Julian or Chinese calendar date is possible using parameter 2.

ISO8601

(optional) if present, this ISO8601 date/time value is emitted instead of the value derived from parameter 1.

BCE

(required for BCE dates) set to yes if the date is BC.

timezone

tz

(required if timezone information specified) Set to yes if the time is UTC or if the location, timezone, or timezone offset is specified.

TemplateData

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 based on this TemplateData.

TemplateData for Start-date

No description.

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
1	1	no description	Unknown	optional
2	2	no description	Unknown	optional
ISO8601	ISO8601	no description	Unknown	optional
dt	dt	no description	Unknown	optional
tz	tz	set to "yes" when timezone is present, or when timzone UTC is implicit	Boolean	optional
timezone	timezone	no description	Unknown	optional
BCE	BCE	no description	Unknown	optional
BC	BC	no description	Unknown	optional
display	display	no description	Unknown	optional
class-extra	class-extra	no description	Unknown	optional
df	df	no description	Unknown	optional

Ambiguous times and dates

For the years 99 BC to 99AD especially, microformats may not be emitted properly unless expressed in the form YYYY-MM-DD. For users uninterested in microformats, it should be noted that this restriction has no known impacts other than microformat data which are currently invisible to users. The user of course may express the display form in the second parameter however they would like. Example: 1-2-3 is interpreted as February 3, 1 A.D, and emitted in that form via microformats when the user may have intended something else. Other 3 digit years may be misinterpreted as well, so best practice is to use leading zeros to make a 4 digit year for this date range. For example, February 274 will be interpreted as February 27, 2004. Instead, use "February 0274". Background: There is a good rationale for the behavior of the system function which actually does the hard work of this template. It is very unusual for people to mention such dates so long ago, so when we really mean this date, we must specify a 4 digit date. Outside of this period with ambiguous years, users may use free text dates without this restriction. Bot runs may make a conversion of non 4 digit years to 4 digits (with leading zeros) in order to refine Wikipedia's quality of microformat dates. These changes will not affect display, but for those curious, this is the rationale for such bot manipulations.

Time zones

Most time zone abbreviations as well as a large number of place names are recognized. (See recognized timezone values table.)

{{start-date|December 7, 1941 8:43AM Pacific/Honolulu }} → Template:Start-date

{{start-date|December 8, 1941 12:30PM Asia/Manila }} → Template:Start-date

Tracking categories

Template transclusions with invalid parameters:

• Category:Start-date transclusions with invalid parameters (0)
• Category:Birth-date transclusions with invalid parameters (0)
• Category:End-date transclusions with invalid parameters (0)
• Category:Death-date transclusions with invalid parameters (0)

Dates not in Wikidata:

• Category:Date of birth not in Wikidata (0)
• Category:Date of death not in Wikidata (0)
• Category:Articles without Wikidata item (0)

See also

• {{Date-mf}}