Trying to do some date and time processing myself, I ran into problems caused by ConTeXt makeing it incompatibel with the original plain TeX itself! In the TeX-book, Appendix B one finds <citation> (Some parameters are set by TeX itself as it runs, so it is inappropriate to initialize them: \time, \day, \month, and year are established at the beginning of a job; .. </citation> Now the results in ConTeXT with a minimal example, put into the log for easier copying into the mail: \starttext \writestatus{}{\meaning\date -> \date} \writestatus{}{\meaning\day -> \the\day} \writestatus{}{\meaning\month -> \month WHY NOT monthname?} \writestatus{}{\meaning\year -> \the\year} \writestatus{}{\meaning\time -> \the\time} \stoptext Result: > \time-> \time > \protected macro:->\dodoubleempty \syst_converters_date -> \date > \day-> 20 > macro:#1->\ctxcommand {monthname(#1)}-> \labeltext {unknown}RROR > \year-> 2013 > \time-> 982 I strongly ask that ConTeXt abstains from changing the definition of \month and reverts to the exact result as given by plain TeX, i.e. a number in the range [1-12]. Because the change makes it impossible to do calculations on the month. Hans van der Meer