Coffee Shop time format

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I regret to say that I do find the time used on this very website somewhat annoying - at the moment it tells me that the time is 07:59 pm.....................no it isn't !

The format we use is "%B %d, %Y, %I:%M:%S %p" where, I think, the letters come from the https://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.format.php page.   Please feel free to suggest changes - they do need to be made across the whole user base, so if I see lots of different ideas from different people, I'll need to arrange a vote or something.

Edit - format is at https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/datetime/strftime rather than the one quoted above.

[ChrisB]

I'd vote for the 24 hour clock

[PhilWakely]

I'd vote for the 24 hour clock

agreed

[Red Squirrel]

So would I! And just to make a nerdish point, the time separator in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is traditionally a full stop rather than a colon, so 23.47 rather than 23:47…

[PrestburyRoad]

... And just to make a nerdish point, the time separator in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is traditionally a full stop rather than a colon, so 23.47 rather than 23:47…

That's fine when you're writing just hours and minutes.  When you also include seconds I think you need to use colon throughout, to avoid something that looks like a misformatted decimal number with two decimal points.

[broadgage]

I also would vote for the 24 hour clock, as used in the great majority of public transport facilities.

[broadgage]

So would I! And just to make a nerdish point, the time separator in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is traditionally a full stop rather than a colon, so 23.47 rather than 23:47…

Yes, but the old digital clocks widely used on "network southeast" stations used a semi colon I think. The clocks with an electro mechanical display of dayglow yellow figures against a dark background. Large stations often had several such clocks, each showing a slightly different time.

[grahame]

Change made - with "am" or "pm" removed, leaving ":" between each item; I have read carefully but not gone for a full stop or semicolon in there.  There may be one or two places where the old format is hard coded and if I spot any over coming days I will change those too.

[froome]

But are we on Greenwich Mean Time or Melksham local time?   

[stuving]

... And just to make a nerdish point, the time separator in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is traditionally a full stop rather than a colon, so 23.47 rather than 23:47…

That's fine when you're writing just hours and minutes.  When you also include seconds I think you need to use colon throughout, to avoid something that looks like a misformatted decimal number with two decimal points.

Surely it's more of a problem with one stop and no colons, making a valid decimal number as an alternative interpretation. Writing a time as hours and decimal hours may be very unusual, but it helps (for people as well as programs) to keep to he same presentation for all times and time intervals, and decimal seconds are quite common. And you sometime need both - though perhaps not for trains, where a time given as 11:23:47.93 would invite jeers.

[grahame]

But are we on Greenwich Mean Time or Melksham local time?   

Ah ... no changes made there.   The forum is showing zero offset by default at present from GMT and I will remind myself when the clocks go forward what it does - I think it switches automatically to British Summer Time.  Individual users can set their profile to override that - for example members in France and Sweden can show their local time.

I am not going to add any text for timezone onto the times stated.  And Melksham Local Time (as on the Town Hall Clock) is not internet connected - it's roughly the same as British Standard time but slips a bit because the clock runs slightly slow and is occasionally adjusted by a chap or chapess going up into the rafters.

[didcotdean]

So would I! And just to make a nerdish point, the time separator in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is traditionally a full stop rather than a colon, so 23.47 rather than 23:47…

And on the 12 hour clock five past seven traditionally would be 7.5 rather than 7.05 but I can't remember the last time I saw that.

[ellendune]

So would I! And just to make a nerdish point, the time separator in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is traditionally a full stop rather than a colon, so 23.47 rather than 23:47…

And on the 12 hour clock five past seven traditionally would be 7.5 rather than 7.05 but I can't remember the last time I saw that.

Yes but those of us who have worked on standards for the last 30 years have a colon separator engrained in us as that is the ISO standard which is also adopted by BSI^▸ (British Standards Institute) as a British Standard.

So my nerdishness would grate at the use of a full stop!

[broadgage]

But are we on Greenwich Mean Time or Melksham local time?   

Or even Swindon time ! ISTR^▸ ('I seem to recall/remember') that "railway time" was once as told by the station clock at Swindon, GMT came later.
At the Bristol corn exchange there is still a clock with TWO minute hands, one for Bristol time and the other for London time/GMT.

[Clan Line]

24 hr clock - with colon please.  Don't bother with the Leap Second !