# biblatex dates

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/biblatex-dates/1017>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [June 5, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/biblatex-dates/1017 "2011-06-05T21:34:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/biblatex-dates/1017/1 "2011-06-05T21:34:40Z")

</div>

Looking at biblatex again, I note they have a normalize data form that  
seems effectively to be a subset of EDTF; e.g. ISO/W3C date  
representations, plus compound/range dates. E.g.:

2002-01/2002-02 —\> 01/2002–02/2002 (short form) and January  
2002–February 2002 (long form)

> From the docs:

“2.3.8 Date Specifications  
The date fields date, origdate, eventdate, and urldate require a date specifi-  
cation in yyyy-mm-dd format. Date ranges are given as yyyy-mm-dd/yyyy-mm-dd.  
Partial dates are valid provided that date components are omitted at  
the end only.  
You may specify an open ended date range by giving the range separator and  
omitting the end date (e. g., yyyy/). See table 2 for some examples of  
valid date  
specifications and the formatted date autmatically generated by biblatex. The  
formatted date is language specific and will be adapted automatically.  
If there is  
no date field in an entry, biblatex will also consider the fields year and month  
for backwards compatibility with traditional BibTeX. Style author  
should note that  
date fields like date or origdate are only available in the bib file.  
All dates are  
parsed and dissected into their components as the bib file is processed. The date  
components are made available to styles by way of the special fields discussed in  
§ 4.2.4.3. See this section and table 7 on page 126 for further information”

Bruce