Scott R. Godin wrote:
I'm sort of surprised that there is no equivalent DateTime-using module
that would mirror the capabilities of Date::Parse. Dave, Have you talked
with Graham Barr at all about merging the arbitrary-date-parsing
capabilities (of Date::Parse) into the DateTime family tree?
G'day Scott,
It's been discussed before, and the main reason is below. There's just
no way to properly parse a datetime. You can make 'best guesses'. But
you should probably use something else to make your guesses, then offer
them to the user to pick which they meant.
DateTime prides itself on being accurate and predictable and should
never produce unexpected results.
That being said, there would certainly be room for a
DateTime::Format::Guess module that took strings and attempted to guess
what the string represented. Just be prepared for a lot of .. erm ..
'help' from this list describing the various preferences for guessing
that would need to be included.
I think Graham has even mentioned something about it himself, though
that could be complete tish.
[At one stage I was a fair way through a module that could get down to
finding the date in text such as "She promised she'd be there by five
past midday on the first Monday in April", until I realised that it was
a fun exercise but not much use.]
Cheers!
Rick Measham
parse("04.05.12")
- May 4th, 1912
- May 4th, 2012
- April 5th, 1912
- April 5th, 2012
- May 12, 1904
- May 12, 2004
- 4:05:12 AM
- 16:05:12 (4:05:12 PM)
