[AtroxDev]

I agree. I really like how the `time` crate[0] in the rust world handles this[1].

with your example:

> format_description!("[year]/[month]/[day]")

0: https://crates.io/crates/time

1: https://time-rs.github.io/book/api/format-description.html

[ape4]

This is easier to read but not descriptive enough since there are different kinds year, month, day. Year can be 2 digits, 4 digits, regular or week year. Month can have leading zero or not, long name, short, name. Day could be Julian, leading zero or not, day of the week, etc

[AtroxDev]

That's when you can be more precise if you want: `[year padding:zero repr:full base:calendar sign:automatic]`. The format is also checked on compile time.

[steerablesafe]

+1 for strongly typed and compile-time checked, but I'm still not a fan of a sub-language within a string literal. The language already has syntax to structure things, why make a separate language within strings?

[russtrotter]

In the context of the original article addressing Java 8, in the java.time.format package, there's a DateTimeFormatterBuilder that removes the sub-language element of the issue. With those builder methods, you can construct the fields in the order you want, with whatever precision, with padding, etc.

[chrismorgan]

> The language already has syntax to structure things

I don’t think the language has anything suitable for these purposes. What did you have in mind?