Please check that you do actually need this template before using it. Default date sorting does not work for spelled-out month–year or year–month combos and dates before the year 100, but it works in most other circumstances. Furthermore, this template litters the text content of tables, and data-sort-value should generally be preferred. For more information, see Help:Sorting § Date sorting problems.
Dts (date time sorting) is used to correctly sort and display dates in a sortable table (see Help:Sorting).
What it solves
Dates in their customary formats, if simply treated as alphanumeric text strings, sort in nonsensical ways:
1/8/2013 sorts alphanumerically before 5/3/1967, because 1 is less than 5;
February 5, 1922 sorts alphanumerically before January 3, 1922, because F comes before J.
Use of the YYYY-MM-DD format would solve this problem, but with minor exceptions that format is not used in articles (see WP:DATEFORMAT).
This template automatically attaches a "hidden key" to dates, causing them to sort correctly while still being displayed in one of the customary display formats such as February 5, 1922 or 5 Feb 1922.
Parameters
Dates
The year, month and day can either be entered separately or as a single date.
{{dts|year|month|day|BC}}
{{dts|date}}
1st parameter – Year (optional if month is given)
Positive number (1 to 999,999,999,999) represent years AD or BC (dependant on the fourth parameter).
Negative numbers (−1 to −999,999,999,999) represent years BC (without the fourth parameter).
Year numbers must not contain commas or other formatting.
2nd parameter – Month (optional if the day is not given either)
Full month name – e.g. February
Abbreviated month name – e.g. Feb
Month number – (either zero-padded or not) e.g. 2 or 02
3rd parameter – Day (optional)
Day number – (either zero-padded or not) e.g. 7 or 07
4th parameter – (optional)
May be BC, AD, BCE or CE
Used with a positive year number
1st parameter – the full date
By default YYYY-MM-DD format becomes month-day-year format while other formats remain in the order they are input.
Abbreviated months are accepted and are abbreviated in the output.
Capitalisation and comma mistakes are corrected.
A single number is interpreted as a year, otherwise the date is parsed by the module. The following formats are accepted:
YYYY-MM-DD
DD-MM-YYYY
DD Month YYYY
Month DD, YYYY
YYYY-MM
DD Month
Month DD
Month YYYY
YYYY
Month
Day and month numbers may be 1 or 2 digits, and year numbers may only be 3 or 4 digits. If you need to input a number less than 1000, use leading zeroes (e.g. "0700").
BC years can only be parsed if the date is only the year number.
If you need to include the day or month for BC years or years greater than 9999, you must use separate parameters for year, month and day.
Using format produces a format that depends on, but is not necessarily equal to the format of the supplied date. The format parameter can take nine values.
The template is not capable of distinguishing Julian and Gregorian calendar dates. Also, it is not capable of taking a date in one calendar as input and outputting a date in the other calendar. Thus, to insure proper sorting, editors must either use one calendar for all dates, or pick a specific changeover date (for example, deciding that 4 October 1582 is Julian and all later dates are Gregorian); this would be done on an article-by article basis. Editors are also responsible for explaining to the reader whether the visible dates are Julian or Gregorian, if there is any possibility of confusion.
Linking
The template formerly linked dates automatically, with link=off used to suppress linking. In accordance with current guidelines linking of dates is no longer supported and instances of link=off should be removed. Transclusions using the |link= parameter are tracked in Category:Dts templates with deprecated parameters.
