Federal Information Processing Standards Publications are issued by the National Bureau of Standards under the direction of the Bureau of the Budget in accordance with the provisions of Public Law 89-306 and Bureau of the Budget Circular No. A-86.

Name of Standard. Calendar Date (FIPS 4).

Category of Standard. Federal General Data Standard, Representations and Codes.

Approving Authority. Bureau of the Budget.

Maintenance Agency. Department of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards, (Center for Computer Sciences and Technology).

Cross Index. None.

Applicability. This standard will be prescribed for the interchange of formatted machine sensible coded data between and among agencies. Use within agency data systems is encouraged when such use contributes to operational benefits, efficiency or economy.

Implementation Schedule. This standard will become effective on January 1, 1970. Agencies may use this standard prior to that date by mutual agreement.

Specifications. Federal Information Processing Standard 4 (FIPS 4), Calendar Date, November 1, 1968 (affixed).

Qualifications. As contained in the specifications.

Where to Obtain Copies of the Specifications.

a. Copies of this publication are for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. Refer to Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 4. (Price 20 cents a copy.) (EDITOR: The original printed version of this document sold for 20 cents a copy. The only version available at this time is this HTML version, which is available free on the World Wide Web.)

b. This publication may be copied and locally reproduced to meet agency requirements.

1. Name of Standard. Calendar Date.

2. Category of Standard. Federal General Data Standard, Representations and Codes.

3. Explanation. This standard provides codes and representations for identifying the specific Years, Months, and Days of the Gregorian Calendar.

4. Specifications. Calendar Date is represented by a numeric code of six consecutive positions that represent (from left to right, in high to low order sequence) the Year, the Month and the Day, as identified by the Gregorian Calendar.

4.1. The first two positions represent the units and tens identification of the Year. For example, the Year 1914 is represented as 14, and the Year 1915 is represented as 15.

4.2. The third and fourth positions represent the twelve Months of the Year, i.e.:
 

4.3. The fifth and sixth positions represent the Days of the Month, which are expressed as 01 through 31.

4.4. Examples of Calendar Date coding are: December 1, 1909 is coded as 091201; 31 January 1964 is coded as 640131; 1967 January 15 is coded as 670115.

5. Qualifications: Where considered necessary, this standard may be expressed and applied in the following ways:

5.1. The two digit representation for Year may be reduced to the unit digit only, when information is confined to a period within a decade; it may also be extended to four digits when information extends to more than one century.

5.2. The two digit Month code and the two digit Day representation may collectively be expressed by a three digit. Ordinal Number (beginning with 001, representing January 1 and progressing to 365, representing December 31 except progressing to 366 in Leap Years.

5.3. The codes and representations for Year, Month, and Day and Ordinal Day may be used independently or collectively as required. The only condition which must be fulfilled is that the order must be maintained in a high low sequence, i.e., Year, Month, Day or Year, Ordinal Day.