Different symbolic identifiers for datestr and datetime

In datestr , 'mm' indicates month while 'MM' indicates minutes. The opposite is true for datetime . Is this difference necessary? The resulting confusion when attempting to use a standard format string is uncalled for.

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

See the comment by Peter Perkins on this Answer.

The datetime format string uses the Unicode LDML standard where m refers to minute data and M to month. The datetick and datestr functions predate that standard and their convention uses m to represent month and M to represent minute.