Support for century-format dates

General
1

Hi all,
I think it would be an asset to have support for dates in CXX format, there are three approaches to this,

  • either use an early / mid / late CXX format;
  • or CXX.X to specify the approximate decade: C18.5 stands for 1750;
  • or the previous two.
2

For uncertain or approximate dates, the convention is to set start_date:edtf to a date in Extended Date Time Format, an international academic and industry standard. In iD, click the :heavy_plus_sign: on the right side of the Start Date field to set this key.

  • Sometime in the 17th century: 16XX
  • Sometime in the 1650s: 165X
  • Mid 17th century: 163X~/167X~ according to one style guide, but others may differ

EDTF has a number of syntaxes that can be very useful, such as seasons, or the ability to say a time for certain without knowing the date for certain. If you do enter OSM’s start_date syntax into start_date, iD will suggest a likely EDTF equivalent.

The renderer still requires a start_date in YYYY-MM-DD format. For compatibility with it, you can set it to a most likely date within the range specified by start_date:edtf.

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