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### 7.2 Calendar date items

A calendar date item specifies a day of the year. It is specified differently, depending on whether the month is specified numerically or literally. All these strings specify the same calendar date:

    1972-09-24     # ISO 8601.
    72-9-24        # Assume 19xx for 69 through 99,
                   # 20xx for 00 through 68.
    72-09-24       # Leading zeros are ignored.
    9/24/72        # Common U.S. writing.
    24 September 1972
    24 Sept 72     # September has a special abbreviation.
    24 Sep 72      # Three-letter abbreviations always allowed.
    Sep 24, 1972
    24-sep-72
    24sep72

The year can also be omitted. In this case, the last specified year is used, or the current year if none. For example:

    9/24
    sep 24

Here are the rules.

For numeric months, the ISO 8601 format ‘`year-month-day`’ is allowed, where year is any positive number, month is a number between 01 and 12, and day is a number between 01 and 31. A leading zero must be present if a number is less than ten. If year is 68 or smaller, then 2000 is added to it; otherwise, if year is less than 100, then 1900 is added to it. The construct ‘`month/day/year`’, popular in the United States, is accepted. Also ‘`month/day`’, omitting the year.

Literal months may be spelled out in full: ‘`January`’, ‘`February`’, ‘`March`’, ‘`April`’, ‘`May`’, ‘`June`’, ‘`July`’, ‘`August`’, ‘`September`’, ‘`October`’, ‘`November`’ or ‘`December`’. Literal months may be abbreviated to their first three letters, possibly followed by an abbreviating dot. It is also permitted to write ‘`Sept`’ instead of ‘`September`’.

When months are written literally, the calendar date may be given as any of the following:

    day month year
    day month
    month day year
    day-month-year

Or, omitting the year:

    month day

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