Re: Arabic date format and Microsoft programs

From: Simon Montagu <smontagu_at_smontagu.org>
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:35:39 +0200

On 10/17/2011 10:08 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:42:02 +0200
>> From: Simon Montagu<smontagu_at_smontagu.org>
>> List-software: Ecartis version 1.0.0
>>
>> On 10/15/2011 05:19 PM, Andreas Prilop wrote:
>>> I return to
>>> http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2011-m10/att-0059/1999-12-31.html
>>>
>>> Microsoft programs (Internet Explorer, MS Word), display this as
>>> 31/12/1999
>>>
>>> Other programs (Firefox, Opera, OpenOffice) display this as
>>> 1999/12/31
>>
>> Given that the bidi category of U+002F is CS, 1999/12/31 seems to be the
>> correct rendering following rule W4 of the Bidi Algorithm: "A single
>> common separator between two numbers of the same type changes to that type".
>>
>> Note that this changed in version 4.0.1 of Unicode -- before that the
>> category of U+002F was ES, which would make the correct rendering
>> 31/12/1999 as in Microsoft programs.
>
> Actually, it's the other way around: U+002F being a CS, the correct
> display is 31/12/1999, while if it where an ES, the correct display
> would have been 1999/12/31. I verified this with the Reference
> Implementation (where, confusingly, `/' is ES, so you need to use
> something else, like a comma).
>
> Btw, according to my testing, the current Firefox displays this as
> 31/12/1999. I don't have Opera or OO to check there, but it's
> possible that the OP was using old versions of these that were still
> using the old Unicode data base.

Sorry, I think I confused you here. I quoted the expected rendering in
ASCII digits, but the testcase in fact uses Arabic-Indic digits.
Received on Mon Oct 17 2011 - 03:38:28 CDT

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