Template:Start and end dates

Template documentationviewedithistorypurge

{{Start and end dates}} returns the date range during which an event transpired or an entity existed. It also includes duplicate, machine-readable date (or date-time) in the ISO date format (which is hidden by CSS), for use inside other templates (or table rows) which emit microformats. It should be used only once in each such template and never used outside such templates. The hidden date degrades gracefully when CSS is not available.

When not to use this template

Do not use this template for:

• dates that are uncertain e.g., "before 4 April 1933"; "around 18 November 1939".
• dates outside the range given under "Limitation", below.
• other, secondary dates
• outside microformat-emitting templates—if in doubt, see the parent template's documentation
• more than one date in any parent template

Usage

{{Start and end dates|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}}

Examples

• Standard: {{Start and end dates|1939|9|1|1945|9|2}} → September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945 (1939-09-01 – 1945-09-02)
• Day first: {{Start and end dates|1939|9|1|1945|9|2|df=yes}} → 1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945 (1939-09-01 – 1945-09-02)
• Same year: {{Start and end dates|1939|9|1|1939|10|2}} → September 1 – October 2, 1939 (1939-09-01 – 1939-10-02)
• Same month and year: {{Start and end dates|1939|9|1|1939|9|2}} → September 1–2, 1939 (1939-09-01 – 1939-09-02)
• Present range: {{Start and end dates|1939|9|1|present}} → September 1, 1939 – present (1939-09-01 – present)

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Start and end dates in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Start and end dates

Date that an event or entity started or was created and when it ended or was destroyed

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
YYYY	1	Start year Example 1939	Number	required
MM	2	Start month Example 9	Number	required
DD	3	Start day of month Example 1	Number	required
YYYY	4	end year Example 1945	Number	required
MM	5	End month Example 9	Number	required
DD	6	End day of month Example 2	Number	required
Day first	df	Set to 'yes' to show the day before the month name Suggested values yes y 1	String	optional

Use in microformats

This template also returns the date, hidden by CSS, in the ISO 8601 format needed by one or more of the following microformats:

• hAtom (class="updated")
• hAudio (class="published")
• hCalendar (class="dtstart")
• hCard (class="bday")

usually, but not always, within infobox or similar templates, or tables.

Its use in hCard is for organizations, venues and similar; use {{Birth date}} or {{Birth date and age}} for people.

Similarly, {{End date}} returns the date as hCalendar's (class="dtend").

See the microformats project for further details.

Limitation

This template has no provision to deal with a date in a non-Gregorian calendar. Also, ISO 8601 requires mutual agreement among those exchanging information before using years outside the range 1583–9999 CE. Therefore, use of this template for non-Gregorian dates or dates outside that range constitutes a false claim of conformance to the ISO 8601 standard.

Any editor encountering such usage should change the date to plain text with no template; or if not confident in doing so, raise the matter on this template's talk page.

Tracking categories

• Category:Pages using start and end dates with unknown parameters (0)

See also

• {{Start date}}
• {{End date}}

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Start and end dates/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.