The manner in which dates are formatted in a computer system or program. While some organizations require that the same format be used throughout their systems and programs, many organizations have not, which can make tracking down potential date problems, such as the Year 2000 problem, difficult. In addition, date formats can vary widely from organization to organization, although many have opted to standardize on formats specified in ANSI X3.30-1997 or ISO8601:1988.
The structure applied to data by an application program to provide a context in which the data can be interpreted.