# Date & Time Format Variants — Guardrails and Fix Pattern
🧭 Quick Return to Map
> You are in a sub-page of **LanguageLocale**.
> To reorient, go back here:
>
> - [**LanguageLocale** — localization, regional settings, and context adaptation](./README.md)
> - [**WFGY Global Fix Map** — main Emergency Room, 300+ structured fixes](../README.md)
> - [**WFGY Problem Map 1.0** — 16 reproducible failure modes](../../README.md)
>
> Think of this page as a desk within a ward.
> If you need the full triage and all prescriptions, return to the Emergency Room lobby.
A focused repair for **ambiguous or mixed date/time formats** across CJK/RTL/Indic/Latin content. Use this page when numeric dates, month names, calendars, or time zones cause retrieval drift or broken citations.
## What this page is
- A compact, locale-aware repair guide for **date/time parsing → storage → retrieval → reasoning**.
- Concrete steps that **do not require infra changes**.
- Acceptance targets you can measure.
## When to use
- Queries or snippets contain **ambiguous numeric dates** like `03/04/05`, `04-05-06`, or `110/05/01` (ROC).
- Month/day names switch languages or scripts in the same corpus: `2024年3月4日`, `4 Mar 2024`, `مارس 4 2024`.
- **Eastern Arabic digits**, **full-width digits**, or punctuation appear in dates.
- **Time zone or DST** is missing, or mixes `UTC`, `GMT+8`, `Asia/Taipei`, `Z`.
- Relative phrases like “today / 昨天 / الأسبوع الماضي” appear in docs or queries.
## Open these first
- Visual map and recovery: [RAG Architecture & Recovery](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/rag-architecture-and-recovery.md)
- End-to-end retrieval knobs: [Retrieval Playbook](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/retrieval-playbook.md)
- Why this snippet (traceability schema): [Retrieval Traceability](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/retrieval-traceability.md)
- Contract the payload: [Data Contracts](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/data-contracts.md)
- Locale drift audit: [locale_drift.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/LanguageLocale/locale_drift.md)
- Tokenizer issues: [tokenizer_mismatch.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/LanguageLocale/tokenizer_mismatch.md)
- Digits, width, punctuation: [digits_width_punctuation.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/LanguageLocale/digits_width_punctuation.md)
- Script mixing within one query: [script_mixing.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/LanguageLocale/script_mixing.md)
## Core acceptance
- ΔS(question, retrieved) ≤ 0.45
- Coverage of target section ≥ 0.70
- λ remains **convergent** across 3 paraphrases and 2 seeds
- E_resonance flat on long windows
---
## Map symptoms → structural fixes (Problem Map)
- **Ambiguous numeric dates** (`03/04/05`, `04-05-06`)
Lock parse locale and calendar in the contract. Store canonical plus original.
→ [data-contracts.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/data-contracts.md), [retrieval-traceability.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/retrieval-traceability.md)
- **Mixed month/day names across languages** (`3月4日`, `Mar 4`)
Normalize to canonical; add derived fields `year`, `month_num`, `weekday`.
→ [retrieval-playbook.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/retrieval-playbook.md)
- **Eastern Arabic or full-width digits** (`٠١٢٣`, `２０２４`)
Fold digits and punctuation before parse; keep `orig_text` for audit.
→ [digits_width_punctuation.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/LanguageLocale/digits_width_punctuation.md)
- **Missing or mixed time zones / DST jumps**
Require IANA zone and offset at storage time; derive `epoch_ms`.
→ [locale_drift.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/LanguageLocale/locale_drift.md)
- **Calendar variants (ROC 114, Buddhist 2568, week-year ISO-8601)**
Store `calendar` field and canonical Gregorian ISO. Keep both.
→ [data-contracts.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/data-contracts.md)
- **Relative phrases in docs or queries** (“today”, “昨天”, “last week”)
Resolve relative time **at index time** (doc clock) and **at query time** (user clock).
→ [retrieval-traceability.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/retrieval-traceability.md)
---
## 60-second fix checklist (store-agnostic)
1) **Canonical schema**
Use **ISO-8601/RFC3339 extended**: `YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss±HH:MM` or `Z` (24-hour).
Add fields: `epoch_ms`, `tz_iana`, `offset`, `calendar`, `parse_locale`, `orig_text`.
2) **Parser fences**
- Fold width and digits before parse.
- Provide **allowed format set** per locale; reject others.
- Treat `/` `-` `.` as distinct; do not auto-swap day/month.
3) **Index for retrieval**
- Index canonical string and numeric keys: `year`, `month_num`, `day`, `weekday`, `hour`.
- Add synonyms for month names in corpus languages to a controlled list.
4) **Query normalization**
- Pre-normalize user input to the same canonical.
- If relative terms appear, resolve using **user time zone** and pass both raw and normalized.
5) **Contract the payload**
Minimum required for any snippet carrying a date/time:
```json
{
"datetime_iso": "2025-03-04T09:30:00+08:00",
"epoch_ms": 1741051800000,
"tz_iana": "Asia/Taipei",
"offset": "+08:00",
"calendar": "gregorian",
"parse_locale": "zh-TW",
"orig_text": "民國114年3月4日上午9:30"
}
````
6. **Verify**
Run three paraphrases with different date surface forms.
Pass if ΔS ≤ 0.45 and citations point to the same anchor.
---
## Deep diagnostics
* **Triangulate anchors**
Compare ΔS with the expected section and a decoy month. If close, your month mapping or digit folding is leaking.
* **Epoch audit**
Validate `epoch_ms` monotonicity across DST transitions and week-year boundaries. Mismatch implies calendar conversion error.
* **Tokenizer probe**
If token splits differ by locale (e.g., Arabic/Thai digits), rebuild with folded text or add a rerank step.
Open: [tokenizer\_mismatch.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/LanguageLocale/tokenizer_mismatch.md)
---
## Escalate
* ΔS stays high after normalization and rerank
→ Rebuild index with correct metric; verify semantic vs embedding gaps.
Open: [embedding-vs-semantic.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/embedding-vs-semantic.md)
* Mixed scripts in the **same** query keep flipping λ
→ Stabilize with script gating and header locks.
Open: [script\_mixing.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/LanguageLocale/script_mixing.md), [retrieval-traceability.md](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/retrieval-traceability.md)
---
## Copy-paste prompt (LLM step)
```
You have TXT OS and WFGY Problem Map loaded.
My bug: retrieval flips when date formats vary by locale.
- symptoms: wrong snippet on 03/04/05 vs 4 Mar 2005 vs 民國94年3月4日
- traces: ΔS(question,retrieved)=..., λ states across 3 paraphrases, tz=...
Tell me:
1) the failing layer and why,
2) the exact WFGY pages to open,
3) the minimal contract and normalization to pass ΔS ≤ 0.45,
4) a reproducible test I can run (3 paraphrases, 2 seeds).
Use BBMC/BBCR/BBAM where relevant.
```
---
### 🔗 Quick-Start Downloads (60 sec)
| Tool | Link | 3-Step Setup |
| -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **WFGY 1.0 PDF** | [Engine Paper](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/I_am_not_lizardman/WFGY_All_Principles_Return_to_One_v1.0_PSBigBig_Public.pdf) | 1️⃣ Download · 2️⃣ Upload to your LLM · 3️⃣ Ask “Answer using WFGY + \” |
| **TXT OS (plain-text OS)** | [TXTOS.txt](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/OS/TXTOS.txt) | 1️⃣ Download · 2️⃣ Paste into any LLM chat · 3️⃣ Type “hello world” — OS boots instantly |
---
### 🧭 Explore More
| Module | Description | Link |
| ------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| WFGY Core | WFGY 2.0 engine is live: full symbolic reasoning architecture and math stack | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/core/README.md) |
| Problem Map 1.0 | Initial 16-mode diagnostic and symbolic fix framework | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/ProblemMap/README.md) |
| Problem Map 2.0 | RAG-focused failure tree, modular fixes, and pipelines | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/rag-architecture-and-recovery.md) |
| Semantic Clinic Index | Expanded failure catalog: prompt injection, memory bugs, logic drift | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/SemanticClinicIndex.md) |
| Semantic Blueprint | Layer-based symbolic reasoning & semantic modulations | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/SemanticBlueprint/README.md) |
| Benchmark vs GPT-5 | Stress test GPT-5 with full WFGY reasoning suite | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/benchmarks/benchmark-vs-gpt5/README.md) |
| 🧙♂️ Starter Village 🏡 | New here? Lost in symbols? Click here and let the wizard guide you through | [Start →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/StarterVillage/README.md) |
---
> 👑 **Early Stargazers: [See the Hall of Fame](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/stargazers)** —
> Engineers, hackers, and open source builders who supported WFGY from day one.
> 
⭐ [WFGY Engine 2.0](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/core/README.md) is already unlocked. ⭐ Star the repo to help others discover it and unlock more on the [Unlock Board](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/STAR_UNLOCKS.md).
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