ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times is an
international standard covering the exchange of
date and
time-related data. It was issued by the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was first published in 1988. The purpose of this standard is to provide an unambiguous and well-defined method of representing dates and times, so as to avoid misinterpretation of numeric representations of dates and times, particularly when data are transferred between
countries with different conventions for writing numeric dates and times.