Template:Dts/doc

 stands for ate able orting and is used to correctly sort and display dates in a sortable table (see Help:Sorting).

What it solves
Normally, for proper sorting dates must be entered in YYYY-MM-DD format. But this does not conform to the Manual of Style for date display and wikilinking.

This template automatically creates the hidden  for sorting purposes and then displays and  wikilinks the date properly like this July 4 1776, depending on the user's Special:Preferences.

Parameters

 * 1st parameter - Day (optional)
 * Day number - 7 or 07
 * 2nd parameter - Month (optional if the day is not given either)
 * Full month name - February or february
 * Abbreviated month name - Feb or feb
 * Month number - 2 or 02
 * 3rd parameter - Year
 * Year number - number in the range -9999 through 9999: the numbers -9999 through 0 are used without "bc" and represent astronomical years -9999 through 0, the numbers 1 through 9999 represent that year AD, or BC with the fourth parameter set to bc or BC
 * 4th parameter - optional with value BC or bc
 * Used with a positive year number

Thus e.g. for the year 5 BC we can use "5|bc" or "-4".

A time period (year or month and year) is sorted according to its start, and time periods with the same starting moment are in order of descending length: a year comes before its first month; a month comes before its first day.

Input
July 1776 4

See also the examples.

Output
Output sent to table 1776-07-04 July 4 1776 Output displayed to user July 1776 4

Examples
Examples with debug=yes (hidden parts are made visible):

The same examples with hidden parts actually hidden: