http - 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 date format should be ISO 8601 format, such as YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ for UTC time.

Should we use the ISO 8601 version without hyphens and colons, such as:

http://api.example.com/start_date/YYYYMMDDThhmmssZ

or should we encode the ISO 8601 format, using for example base64 encoding?

Answer 1

Check this article for the 5 laws of API dates and times HERE:

• Law #1: Use ISO-8601 for your dates
• Law #2: Accept any timezone
• Law #3: Store it in UTC
• Law #4: Return it in UTC
• Law #5: Don’t use time if you don’t need it

More info in the docs.