6.6 Date and Time Types
The date field type specifier can be used to declare dates and
times. The synopsis is:
%typedef: type_name date
There are many permitted date formats, described in detail later in this manual (see Date input formats).
Of particular note are the following:
- Dates and times read from recfiles are not affected by the
locale or the timezone. This means that the LC_TIME and the
TZ environment variables are ignored.
If you wish, for example, to specify a time which must be interpreted as UTC, you
must explicitly append the time zone correction: e.g. ‘2001-1-10 12:09Z’.
- The field value `1/10/2001' means January 10, 2001, not October 1, 2001.
- Relative times and dates (such as `1 day ago') are permitted but are not
particularly useful.