The details in this section are usually sufficient for expressing durations and deadlines in a BPEL process. If you need further details, see XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition at the following Web site: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2.
For durations:
A positive duration begins with the letter P.
A calendar-duration subset (for years, months, or days) is composed of integers followed by a capital Y, M, or D:
14Y means 14 years.
9M means 9 months.
5D means 5 days.
The calendar-duration subsets must be in sequence from the largest to smallest unit of time:
P2Y9M5D means 2 years, 9 months, and 5 days.
P9M5D means 9 months and 5 days.
P5D means 5 days.
You can skip values but cannot change the order:
P1Y5D means 1 year and 5 days.
P5D1Y is not valid because years must precede days.
A clock-duration value begins with a capital T, and each subset (for hours, minutes, or seconds) is composed of integers followed by a capital H, M, or S:
PT6H means 6 hours.
PT9M5S means 9 minutes and 5 seconds.
PT5.23S means 5.23 seconds.
The clock-duration subsets must be in sequence from the largest to smallest unit of time:
PT2H9M5S means 2 hours, 9 minutes, and 5 seconds.
PT9M5S means 9 minutes and 5 seconds.
PT5S means 5 seconds.
You can skip values but cannot change the order:
PT1H5S means 1 hour and 5 seconds.
PT5S1M is not valid because minutes must precede seconds.
You can combine the date and time durations. P4Y2DT5M1S, for example, means 4 years, 2 days, 5 minutes, and 1 second.
Durations must conform to the XSD data type xsd:duration.
For deadlines:
You must fulfill either of two formats in full:
CCYY-MM-DD
CCYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss
You can add an optional time zone to either format:
the literal Z (for Coordinated Universal Time, which is nearly identical to Greenwich Mean Time); or
(+ | -) hh:mm, which is an offset from Coordinated Universal Time. The offset is negative from west of the meridian to the international date line and is otherwise positive.
Include literal hyphens and (for the second format) literal colons and the capital letter T.
Substitute digits for the other characters:
CCYY stands for a four-digit year ("C" is for century).
MM stands for a two-digit month.
DD stands for a two-digit day.
hh stands for a two-digit hour (0–23).
mm stands for a two-digit minute.
ss stands for a two-digit second.
2109-02-06T09:15:03 refers to 9:15:03 AM on 6 February 2109. The time zone is unspecified.
2109-02-06T14:15:03-05:00 refers to 2:15:03 PM Eastern Standard Time on 6 February 2109.
Deadlines must conform to the XSD data type xsd:date or xsd:dateTime.