[API-users] API change: eventDate ranges

[Matthew Blissett]

Dear GBIF API users,

Last year we announced an upcoming change to how the GBIF API would 
handle ranges in the Darwin Core eventDate field.  Date ranges formatted 
using the ISO 8601 standard will retain their meaning, and the API will 
return values like "2000-05" or "2007-11-13/2007-11-15".

The changes have been visible on the test system, GBIF-UAT.org, since 
late September.  We are currently reprocessing the data for GBIF.org, 
and expect to make the change visible tomorrow afternoon (around 24 
hours from now).

For more information, see the GitHub issue or Discourse discussion:

→ https://github.com/gbif/gbif-api/issues/4#issuecomment-1735378954/

→ 
https://discourse.gbif.org/t/gbif-api-supporting-ranges-in-occurrence-eventdate/3804/

If you find errors with how the eventDate field is processed, for 
example if processing has failed to handle a well-formatted eventDate, 
please give feedback in the usual way — with the link on the top right 
of the occurrence page.  If you have a GitHub account, you can also 
create an issue (or comment on an existing issue) at 
https://github.com/gbif/portal-feedback/issues

The new technical documentation website has a page on date and time 
interpretation: 
https://techdocs.gbif.org/en/data-processing/temporal-interpretation

Tomorrow's deployment will also support the Darwin Core terms introduced 
last year, and allow searching using several paleontological terms.

Thanks,

Matt