On 7/14/03 11:10 PM, Ben Bennett wrote:
> I am taking a whack at DT::F::Simple (please speak up now if anyone
> else wants to claim this project) that can parse things that are
> similar to the ones that Date::Parse can do.
Sweet, someone took the bai--...er, "picked up the baton" ;)
> Namely:
> - Rough ISO8601 strings (only complete datetimes and dates)
> - Dates with '-', '.', or '/' separators (either by month number or
> localized short or long name)
> - Times with ':' or '-' separator and optional localized AM/PM
> - Day names will be used to sanity check the parsed date if present
> - I will use localized BC/AD if present
I'm sure you're already doing this, but just in case, make sure to allow for
single-digit numbers where there is no ambiguity. This is essential for
handling "user-created" input. Examples:
9/3/2002 (e.g. don't require 09/03/2002)
1:02 (e.g. don't require 01:02)
and maybe even:
200210131:02
but that may make some people break out in hives, so whatever :) Also,
don't forget about the optional "." in "a.m." and "p.m." I'm not quite sure
how that'd get localized, but the point is that the localized am/pm thingies
must be regexes, not constant strings (or, okay, a regex constructed out of
a list of constant strings, if you want :)
> Which leads to my problem, there appears to be no simple way to get
> the date order to differentiate m/d/y from d/m/y.
Don't. Make it a setting. I've been trying to think of what to name this
setting, but have no good ideas. Here are some bad ones instead:
DT::F::Simple->use_mmddyyyy(1);
DT::F::Simple->use_ddmmyyyy(1);
DT::F::Simple->mode('us');
DT::F::Simple->mode('euro');
DT::F::Simple->euro_mode(1);
DT::F::Simple->us_mode(1);
Gah, that's horrible :) Someone out there must have some sort of
pre-existing vocabulary to describe the date format differences. Is it just
regional, or are there ISO numbers to reference or what?
-John
