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Date format in docs is incorrect (and partly correct)?!

kjh says:
Hello RTM team,

I believe there's an error in the advanced search docs. The date format examples are shown with a British format (odd, no?). e.g., 31/10/2023. (d/m/yyyy)

However, if I try that directly in the web app, it's wrong. It definitely seems to be using the US format (m/d/yyyy). Well kinda (see below).

For example, if I run this query with the US format, I get the expected results restricted to the correct date range.

completedBefore:"10/31/2023" AND completedAfter:"10/1/2023"


But if I run it with this query, I get results going back to Jan 10, so this is still following the US format.

completedBefore:"31/10/2023" AND completedAfter:"1/10/2023"


But wait... there's more!
If I modify the 10/31 date in the first query above, it still works!

completedBefore:"31/10/2023" AND completedAfter:"10/1/2023"


This all seems like 2 issues to me:
1. Incorrect documentation.
2. Bug in the date interpretation (or some weird 'feature'?).

Would love some clarity on this.
Thanks!

PS> it seems that the API developer mailing list is dormant; last activity was in April 2021. Why not just have a sub-forum for developers right here in the RTM-native forums?

---
Refs:
* Advanced search docs: https://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/?ctx=basics.search.advanced
* API Developer mailing list: https://groups.google.com/g/rememberthemilk-api?pli=1
Posted at 6:19pm on November 25, 2023
kev1n says:
Right, Seems a bit odd. I am from the US but prefer the ISO 8601 format, YYYY-MM-DD, and that seems to work in the search query, i.e., completedAfter:"2023-11-13" AND completedBefore: "2023-11-20". I think account settings for date format is only for how it is displayed. I wish ISO 8601 was an option.
Posted 10 months ago
andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:
Hi kjh,
Thanks for bringing all of this up!

We show the dates in the advanced search page just as an example, but you should use what you are comfortable with.

And what you are comfortable with should be set in your Account Settings too, so hopefully that all lines up! 😅

I think that's why you're seeing inconsistent results if you use the advanced search examples (DD/MM format) but likely have the MM/DD format set in your own account.

However, if anything doesn't match your set date format, could you contact us by email? We would want to get an example (i.e. screenshot) to look at further and get on our list to investigate.

Keep me posted on what you find! 💙
Posted 10 months ago
kjh says:
Hi Andrew,

Sorry for the late reply; I was expecting to get an email notification that there were replies to the thread!

I'll reply via email so that we can more quickly do the detective work and resolve this.

However, I'd like to ensure that this thread doesn't fall off a cliff, as I'm sure this is useful to the community.

Thanks!

-- Khalid
Posted 10 months ago
This topic has now been closed automatically due to a lack of responses in the past 90 days.