UPPER COLCA ARCHAEOLOGICAL
RESEARCH PROJECT
Arequipa, Peru
Naming Conventions for Project Data
Dates on filenames
Although Windows and ArcGIS recognize the date stamp on files, data sets that change regularly should have a name that includes the date in order to more easily locate the most current version.
For consistency, the date format should be numerical in decreasing order as in Year, Month, Day.
For example, September 10 2003 would be written as 030910.
That six digit code is tacked on to the end of a filename, such as "survey030910".
Although this abbreviated date will cycle in the year 2100, there are two advantages:
1. files with the same name will automatically be grouped sequentially by date.
2. Most of the world writes dates in a different order from North Americans, they use DAY/MONTH/YEAR, which in a way is more logical (sequential). This is just the reverse of that, so it will be easy for everyone to learn.