Datethat

Datethat is a fictional data management platform created for illustrative purposes in this article. The concept describes a system designed to store, organize, and query date- and time-oriented data while preserving temporal integrity across datasets.

Its core data model emphasizes timestamped records, ISO 8601 date and time formats, and explicit time zones. The platform supports temporal versioning, allowing changes to records to be tracked over time and queries to retrieve historical states.

Key features include date normalization, calendar-aware aggregation, time zone handling, and support for temporal joins and range queries. It includes an audit trail and data lineage to help verify the origin and evolution of dated information.

Datethat is envisioned for use in analytics, event logging, epidemiology, finance, and any domain requiring precise historical context. Typical workflows involve ingesting events with timestamps, normalizing dates, indexing on date fields, and executing queries that compare time periods or reconstruct histories.

In educational and design contexts, Datethat is used as a reference model for teaching principles of temporal databases and date-aware analytics. As a fictional construct, it is not deployed as a commercial product.

See also: Temporal database, Time series data, ISO 8601, Temporal query language.