Recommended date format for REST GET API

Question

What\'s the recommended timestamp format for a REST GET API like this:

http://api.example.com/start_date/{timestamp}

I think the actual dat

Answer 1

Every datetime field in input/output needs to be in UNIX/epoch format. This avoids the confusion between developers across different sides of the API.

Pros:

• Epoch format does not have a timezone.
• Epoch has a single format (Unix time is a single signed number).
• Epoch time is not effected by daylight saving.
• Most of the Backend frameworks and all native ios/android APIs support epoch conversion.
• Local time conversion part can be done entirely in application side depends on the timezone setting of user's device/browser.

Cons:

• Extra processing for converting to UTC for storing in UTC format in the database.
• Readability of input/output.
• Readability of GET URLs.

Notes:

• Timezones are a presentation-layer problem! Most of your code shouldn't be dealing with timezones or local time, it should be passing Unix time around.
• If you want to store a humanly-readable time (e.g. logs), consider storing it along with Unix time, not instead of Unix time.