Subject: Result of DATExxxx poll

From: Preben Grosbol <pgrosbol at eso.org>
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 15:26:46 +0200

Dear Friends of FITS,
 First of all - thank you to all who took time and participated in the
poll on the 'DATExxxx year 2000 issue'.  I have merged answers from
the IAU FITS WG in to the final result which is as follows:

 a) Which of the two types of solution would you prefer?
     1) a new date value string definition for the 'DATExxxx' keywords
     2) a new set of keywords to replace the 'DATExxxx' ones

                     Option 1 :  28
                     Option 2 :  10

 b) Do you have any preference for the new 'date value string'?
     1) 'CCYY-MM-DD'                e.g.  '2123-10-21'
     2) 'ISO_STYLE CCYY-MM-DD'      e.g.  'ISO_STYLE 2123-10-21'
     3) a non-ISO format            e.g.  '21/10/2123'

                     Option 1 :  30
                     Option 2 :   5
                     Option 3 :   4

 c) Should a full date/time format (e.g. ISO 8601) be allowed?

                     Yes :       28
                     No  :        5

where answers from 41 persons were received, however, not all answered
all questions.

 This suggests that a detailed proposal for a new 'date value string'
for DATExxxx keywords should be made based on the extended ISO-8601 
format including an optional specification of time.

 The results will be very valuable for the FITS committees in their
work on the proposal and will be discussed during the ADASS '96
meeting next week.

Best regards,
Preben Grosbol