RE: [BUG] Agenda no longer works for timestamps inside properties drawer [9.5.2 (release_9.5.2-24-g668205 @ /home/ignacio/repos/emacs/lisp/org/)]

["Tom Davey" <tom@tomdavey.com>]

Ihor writes: 

> I personally see allowing timestamps (and links) inside property values as a useful feature. 
> Would it be of interest for other users?

Yes, it's a quite useful feature. For years, via my Capture templates, I've been adding a property named :Created: to the properties drawer as follows: 

:PROPERTIES:
:Created:  <2022-03-06 Sun 22:42>
:END:

Now, in 9.5.2, literally hundreds of entries that formerly appeared on the built-in Agenda views cannot be easily found. 

Regards to all, 
Tom 

PS The variable 'org-agenda-skip-additional-timestamps-same-entry seemed expressly made for my use case, to clean up same-day clutter in entries with a TODO timestamp.

--
Tom Davey
tom@tomdavey.com
New York NY USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Emacs-orgmode <emacs-orgmode-bounces+tom=tomdavey.com@gnu.org> On Behalf Of Ihor Radchenko
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2022 7:29 AM
To: Ignacio Casso <ignaciocasso@hotmail.com>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: [BUG] Agenda no longer works for timestamps inside properties drawer [9.5.2 (release_9.5.2-24-g668205 @ /home/ignacio/repos/emacs/lisp/org/)]

Ignacio Casso <ignaciocasso@hotmail.com> writes:

> In Emacs 27.2, with an up to date version of org from ELPA (9.5.2), 
> org-agenda considers timestamps that appear in property drawers, so 
> the entry below appears in the daily agenda view.
>
> * Heading
>   :PROPERTIES:
>   :timestamp: <2022-03-12 sáb>
>   :END:
>
> However, in the latest Emacs version built from source (29.0.50), with 
> the built-in version of org (also 9.5.2, but the latest release, I 
> assume), this is no longer the case and that entry does not appear in 
> the agenda view.
>
> I know that maybe it's unorthodox, but I have some org files that rely 
> in the previous behavior, with entries like the following:
>
> * Some friend
>   :PROPERTIES:
>   :birth-date: <1994-03-12 sáb +1y>
>   :END:
>
> Is this a bug? If it's not, can someone point me to the functions I 
> need to touch to restore the previous behavior? Or maybe I should stop 
> doing this and start moving those timestamps out of the properties 
> drawer in my files?

What you see in the new Org version is not a bug. Property values are treated as plain text by Org.

In the older versions, agenda code did not rely on Org's internal parsing and matched timestamps in places where timestamps are not allowed (inside code blocks, for example). See https://orgmode.org/list/20220101122409.GA29829@itccanarias.org

Dear all,

I was unable to find a place in manual describing that timestamps cannot be placed inside property values:

>> A timestamp is a specification of a date (possibly with a time or a 
>> range of times) in a special format, either ‘<2003-09-16 Tue>’ or
>> ‘<2003-09-16 Tue 09:39>’ or ‘<2003-09-16 Tue 12:00-12:30>’(1).  A 
>> timestamp can appear anywhere in the headline or body of an Org tree 
>> entry.  Its presence causes entries to be shown on specific dates in 
>> the agenda (see *note Weekly/daily agenda::).  We distinguish:

I personally see allowing timestamps (and links) inside property values as a useful feature. Would it be of interest for other users?

In any case, we should probably clarify manual in this regard.

Best,
Ihor