org-bbdb: anniversaries with unknown years

org-bbdb: anniversaries with unknown years

[Christoph Groth]

Hello,

I'd like to keep birthdays and similar dates in bbdb and have them shown
in my org mode agenda views.  Often, however, I do not know the year of
an anniversary, and in the case of my acquaintances the year of a
personal anniversary is often not meaningful (e.g. name days, popular in
some countries).

The solution that came to my mind was to update org-bbdg.el to also
accept dates in the format MM-DD.  org-bbdb-anniv-extract-date would
then substitute nil for unknown years.  The remaining code would make
sure that "unknown" is substituted for unknown `years'.

That solution seems fine, however it would break compatibility with the
old format of org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist, as this assumes that a
numerical value of `years' is always defined.

Before writing a patch, I would like to ask for opinions on this.

Cheers
Christoph

Re: org-bbdb: anniversaries with unknown years

[Carsten Dominik]

On Oct 10, 2010, at 12:15 PM, Christoph Groth wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'd like to keep birthdays and similar dates in bbdb and have them  
> shown
> in my org mode agenda views.  Often, however, I do not know the year  
> of
> an anniversary, and in the case of my acquaintances the year of a
> personal anniversary is often not meaningful (e.g. name days,  
> popular in
> some countries).
>
> The solution that came to my mind was to update org-bbdg.el to also
> accept dates in the format MM-DD.  org-bbdb-anniv-extract-date would
> then substitute nil for unknown years.  The remaining code would make
> sure that "unknown" is substituted for unknown `years'.
>
> That solution seems fine, however it would break compatibility with  
> the
> old format of org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist, as this assumes  
> that a
> numerical value of `years' is always defined.
>
> Before writing a patch, I would like to ask for opinions on this.

I am not sure if there are nay other tools which make use of birthdays  
in bbdb.

I would such an extension useful.

- Carsten

>
> Cheers
> Christoph
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

Re: org-bbdb: anniversaries with unknown years

[Richard Riley]

Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> writes:

> On Oct 10, 2010, at 12:15 PM, Christoph Groth wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'd like to keep birthdays and similar dates in bbdb and have them  
>> shown
>> in my org mode agenda views.  Often, however, I do not know the year  
>> of
>> an anniversary, and in the case of my acquaintances the year of a
>> personal anniversary is often not meaningful (e.g. name days,  
>> popular in
>> some countries).
>>
>> The solution that came to my mind was to update org-bbdg.el to also
>> accept dates in the format MM-DD.  org-bbdb-anniv-extract-date would
>> then substitute nil for unknown years.  The remaining code would make
>> sure that "unknown" is substituted for unknown `years'.
>>
>> That solution seems fine, however it would break compatibility with  
>> the
>> old format of org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist, as this assumes  
>> that a
>> numerical value of `years' is always defined.
>>
>> Before writing a patch, I would like to ask for opinions on this.
>
> I am not sure if there are nay other tools which make use of birthdays  
> in bbdb.
>
> I would such an extension useful.
>
> - Carsten


++ on that one. I get funny looks when asking friends what year they
were born in. Not least because I refuse to capitulate to the FaceBook
masses. org-mode might be referred to, jokingly, as Borg-mode in #emacs
but faceBook is a far more powerful force for evil .....

Re: Re: org-bbdb: anniversaries with unknown years

[Carsten Dominik]

On Oct 10, 2010, at 1:16 PM, Richard Riley wrote:

> Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Oct 10, 2010, at 12:15 PM, Christoph Groth wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I'd like to keep birthdays and similar dates in bbdb and have them
>>> shown
>>> in my org mode agenda views.  Often, however, I do not know the year
>>> of
>>> an anniversary, and in the case of my acquaintances the year of a
>>> personal anniversary is often not meaningful (e.g. name days,
>>> popular in
>>> some countries).
>>>
>>> The solution that came to my mind was to update org-bbdg.el to also
>>> accept dates in the format MM-DD.  org-bbdb-anniv-extract-date would
>>> then substitute nil for unknown years.  The remaining code would  
>>> make
>>> sure that "unknown" is substituted for unknown `years'.
>>>
>>> That solution seems fine, however it would break compatibility with
>>> the
>>> old format of org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist, as this assumes
>>> that a
>>> numerical value of `years' is always defined.
>>>
>>> Before writing a patch, I would like to ask for opinions on this.
>>
>> I am not sure if there are nay other tools which make use of  
>> birthdays
>> in bbdb.
>>
>> I would such an extension useful.
>>
>> - Carsten
>
>
> ++ on that one. I get funny looks when asking friends what year they
> were born in. Not least because I refuse to capitulate to the FaceBook
> masses. org-mode might be referred to, jokingly, as Borg-mode in  
> #emacs

:-)  Is that so???

Re: Re: org-bbdb: anniversaries with unknown years

[Richard Riley]

Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> writes:

> On Oct 10, 2010, at 1:16 PM, Richard Riley wrote:
>
>>
>> ++ on that one. I get funny looks when asking friends what year they
>> were born in. Not least because I refuse to capitulate to the FaceBook
>> masses. org-mode might be referred to, jokingly, as Borg-mode in  
>> #emacs
>
> :-)  Is that so???
>
>

I think it's somewhat witty ;) Since org-mode has a contrib for just
about everything except making the morning coffee (uh oh ...) ;)

It (org-mode) has even been mentioned in Xah Lee's latest contribution
to the emacs help group as a possible replacement for the antiquated
texinfo formats required for info files ...

Re: org-bbdb: anniversaries with unknown years

[Thomas Baumann]

I will look into that.

Thomas

[PATCH] org-bbdb: allow anniversaries with unknown years

[Christoph Groth]

Anniversaries in BBDB can be now also specified in the format MM-DD
next to YYYY-MM-DD.
---
 doc/org.texi     |   11 ++++++-----
 lisp/org-bbdb.el |   27 ++++++++++++++++++---------
 2 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/org.texi b/doc/org.texi
index b406d29..bfcef06 100644
--- a/doc/org.texi
+++ b/doc/org.texi
@@ -7098,14 +7098,15 @@ following to one your your agenda files:
 
 You can then go ahead and define anniversaries for a BBDB record.  Basically,
 you need to press @kbd{C-o anniversary @key{RET}} with the cursor in a BBDB
-record and then add the date in the format @code{YYYY-MM-DD}, followed by a
-space and the class of the anniversary (@samp{birthday} or @samp{wedding}, or
-a format string).  If you omit the class, it will default to @samp{birthday}.
-Here are a few examples, the header for the file @file{org-bbdb.el} contains
-more detailed information.
+record and then add the date in the format @code{YYYY-MM-DD} or @code{MM-DD},
+followed by a space and the class of the anniversary (@samp{birthday} or
+@samp{wedding}, or a format string).  If you omit the class, it will default to
+@samp{birthday}. Here are a few examples, the header for the file
+@file{org-bbdb.el} contains more detailed information.
 
 @example
 1973-06-22
+06-22
 1955-08-02 wedding
 2008-04-14 %s released version 6.01 of org-mode, %d years ago
 @end example
diff --git a/lisp/org-bbdb.el b/lisp/org-bbdb.el
index 4155f58..c04b7ff 100644
--- a/lisp/org-bbdb.el
+++ b/lisp/org-bbdb.el
@@ -136,12 +136,12 @@
   '(("birthday" lambda
      (name years suffix)
      (concat "Birthday: [[bbdb:" name "][" name " ("
-	     (number-to-string years)
+	     (format "%s" years)        ; handles numbers as well as strings
 	     suffix ")]]"))
     ("wedding" lambda
      (name years suffix)
      (concat "[[bbdb:" name "][" name "'s "
-	     (number-to-string years)
+	     (format "%s" years)
 	     suffix " wedding anniversary]]")))
   "How different types of anniversaries should be formatted.
 An alist of elements (STRING . FORMAT) where STRING is the name of an
@@ -239,11 +239,16 @@ italicized, in all other cases it is left unchanged."
 
 (defun org-bbdb-anniv-extract-date (time-str)
   "Convert YYYY-MM-DD to (month date year).
-Argument TIME-STR is the value retrieved from BBDB."
-  (multiple-value-bind (y m d) (values-list (bbdb-split time-str "-"))
-    (list (string-to-number m)
-	  (string-to-number d)
-	  (string-to-number y))))
+Argument TIME-STR is the value retrieved from BBDB.  If YYYY- is omitted
+it will be considered unknown."
+  (multiple-value-bind (a b c) (values-list (bbdb-split time-str "-"))
+    (if (eq c nil)
+        (list (string-to-number a)
+              (string-to-number b)
+              nil)
+      (list (string-to-number b)
+            (string-to-number c)
+            (string-to-number a)))))
 
 (defun org-bbdb-anniv-split (str)
   "Split multiple entries in the BBDB anniversary field.
@@ -326,8 +331,12 @@ This is used by Org to re-create the anniversary hash table."
 				 class org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist t))
                            class))	; (as format string)
                  (name (nth 1 rec))
-                 (years (- y (car rec)))
-                 (suffix (diary-ordinal-suffix years))
+                 (years (if (eq (car rec) nil)
+                            "unknown"
+                          (- y (car rec))))
+                 (suffix (if (eq (car rec) nil)
+                             ""
+                           (diary-ordinal-suffix years)))
                  (tmp (cond
                        ((functionp form)
                         (funcall form name years suffix))
-- 
1.7.2.3

[Accepted] org-bbdb: allow anniversaries with unknown years

[Bastien Guerry]

Patch 585 (http://patchwork.newartisans.com/patch/585/) is now "Accepted".

Maintainer comment: none

This relates to the following submission:

http://mid.gmane.org/%3C1297078995-9030-1-git-send-email-cwg%40falma.de%3E

Here is the original message containing the patch:

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> Subject: [Orgmode] org-bbdb: allow anniversaries with unknown years
> Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:43:15 -0000
> From: Christoph Groth <cwg@falma.de>
> X-Patchwork-Id: 585
> Message-Id: <1297078995-9030-1-git-send-email-cwg@falma.de>
> To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> Cc: Christoph Groth <cwg@falma.de>
> 
> Anniversaries in BBDB can be now also specified in the format MM-DD
> next to YYYY-MM-DD.
> 
> ---
> doc/org.texi     |   11 ++++++-----
>  lisp/org-bbdb.el |   27 ++++++++++++++++++---------
>  2 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/doc/org.texi b/doc/org.texi
> index b406d29..bfcef06 100644
> --- a/doc/org.texi
> +++ b/doc/org.texi
> @@ -7098,14 +7098,15 @@ following to one your your agenda files:
>  
>  You can then go ahead and define anniversaries for a BBDB record.  Basically,
>  you need to press @kbd{C-o anniversary @key{RET}} with the cursor in a BBDB
> -record and then add the date in the format @code{YYYY-MM-DD}, followed by a
> -space and the class of the anniversary (@samp{birthday} or @samp{wedding}, or
> -a format string).  If you omit the class, it will default to @samp{birthday}.
> -Here are a few examples, the header for the file @file{org-bbdb.el} contains
> -more detailed information.
> +record and then add the date in the format @code{YYYY-MM-DD} or @code{MM-DD},
> +followed by a space and the class of the anniversary (@samp{birthday} or
> +@samp{wedding}, or a format string).  If you omit the class, it will default to
> +@samp{birthday}. Here are a few examples, the header for the file
> +@file{org-bbdb.el} contains more detailed information.
>  
>  @example
>  1973-06-22
> +06-22
>  1955-08-02 wedding
>  2008-04-14 %s released version 6.01 of org-mode, %d years ago
>  @end example
> diff --git a/lisp/org-bbdb.el b/lisp/org-bbdb.el
> index 4155f58..c04b7ff 100644
> --- a/lisp/org-bbdb.el
> +++ b/lisp/org-bbdb.el
> @@ -136,12 +136,12 @@
>    '(("birthday" lambda
>       (name years suffix)
>       (concat "Birthday: [[bbdb:" name "][" name " ("
> -	     (number-to-string years)
> +	     (format "%s" years)        ; handles numbers as well as strings
>  	     suffix ")]]"))
>      ("wedding" lambda
>       (name years suffix)
>       (concat "[[bbdb:" name "][" name "'s "
> -	     (number-to-string years)
> +	     (format "%s" years)
>  	     suffix " wedding anniversary]]")))
>    "How different types of anniversaries should be formatted.
>  An alist of elements (STRING . FORMAT) where STRING is the name of an
> @@ -239,11 +239,16 @@ italicized, in all other cases it is left unchanged."
>  
>  (defun org-bbdb-anniv-extract-date (time-str)
>    "Convert YYYY-MM-DD to (month date year).
> -Argument TIME-STR is the value retrieved from BBDB."
> -  (multiple-value-bind (y m d) (values-list (bbdb-split time-str "-"))
> -    (list (string-to-number m)
> -	  (string-to-number d)
> -	  (string-to-number y))))
> +Argument TIME-STR is the value retrieved from BBDB.  If YYYY- is omitted
> +it will be considered unknown."
> +  (multiple-value-bind (a b c) (values-list (bbdb-split time-str "-"))
> +    (if (eq c nil)
> +        (list (string-to-number a)
> +              (string-to-number b)
> +              nil)
> +      (list (string-to-number b)
> +            (string-to-number c)
> +            (string-to-number a)))))
>  
>  (defun org-bbdb-anniv-split (str)
>    "Split multiple entries in the BBDB anniversary field.
> @@ -326,8 +331,12 @@ This is used by Org to re-create the anniversary hash table."
>  				 class org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist t))
>                             class))	; (as format string)
>                   (name (nth 1 rec))
> -                 (years (- y (car rec)))
> -                 (suffix (diary-ordinal-suffix years))
> +                 (years (if (eq (car rec) nil)
> +                            "unknown"
> +                          (- y (car rec))))
> +                 (suffix (if (eq (car rec) nil)
> +                             ""
> +                           (diary-ordinal-suffix years)))
>                   (tmp (cond
>                         ((functionp form)
>                          (funcall form name years suffix))
> 

Re: [PATCH] org-bbdb: allow anniversaries with unknown years

[Bastien]

Christoph Groth <cwg@falma.de> writes:

> Anniversaries in BBDB can be now also specified in the format MM-DD
> next to YYYY-MM-DD.

I've now applied this patch, thanks for it!

-- 
 Bastien

Re: [PATCH] org-bbdb: allow anniversaries with unknown years

[Thomas Baumann]

Christoph Groth <cwg@falma.de> writes:

> Anniversaries in BBDB can be now also specified in the format MM-DD
> next to YYYY-MM-DD.
> ---
>  doc/org.texi     |   11 ++++++-----
>  lisp/org-bbdb.el |   27 ++++++++++++++++++---------
>  2 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/doc/org.texi b/doc/org.texi
> index b406d29..bfcef06 100644
> --- a/doc/org.texi
> +++ b/doc/org.texi
> @@ -7098,14 +7098,15 @@ following to one your your agenda files:
>  
>  You can then go ahead and define anniversaries for a BBDB record.  Basically,
>  you need to press @kbd{C-o anniversary @key{RET}} with the cursor in a BBDB
> -record and then add the date in the format @code{YYYY-MM-DD}, followed by a
> -space and the class of the anniversary (@samp{birthday} or @samp{wedding}, or
> -a format string).  If you omit the class, it will default to @samp{birthday}.
> -Here are a few examples, the header for the file @file{org-bbdb.el} contains
> -more detailed information.
> +record and then add the date in the format @code{YYYY-MM-DD} or @code{MM-DD},
> +followed by a space and the class of the anniversary (@samp{birthday} or
> +@samp{wedding}, or a format string).  If you omit the class, it will default to
> +@samp{birthday}. Here are a few examples, the header for the file
> +@file{org-bbdb.el} contains more detailed information.
>  
>  @example
>  1973-06-22
> +06-22
>  1955-08-02 wedding
>  2008-04-14 %s released version 6.01 of org-mode, %d years ago
>  @end example
> diff --git a/lisp/org-bbdb.el b/lisp/org-bbdb.el
> index 4155f58..c04b7ff 100644
> --- a/lisp/org-bbdb.el
> +++ b/lisp/org-bbdb.el
> @@ -136,12 +136,12 @@
>    '(("birthday" lambda
>       (name years suffix)
>       (concat "Birthday: [[bbdb:" name "][" name " ("
> -	     (number-to-string years)
> +	     (format "%s" years)        ; handles numbers as well as strings
>  	     suffix ")]]"))
>      ("wedding" lambda
>       (name years suffix)
>       (concat "[[bbdb:" name "][" name "'s "
> -	     (number-to-string years)
> +	     (format "%s" years)
>  	     suffix " wedding anniversary]]")))
>    "How different types of anniversaries should be formatted.
>  An alist of elements (STRING . FORMAT) where STRING is the name of an
> @@ -239,11 +239,16 @@ italicized, in all other cases it is left unchanged."
>  
>  (defun org-bbdb-anniv-extract-date (time-str)
>    "Convert YYYY-MM-DD to (month date year).
> -Argument TIME-STR is the value retrieved from BBDB."
> -  (multiple-value-bind (y m d) (values-list (bbdb-split time-str "-"))
> -    (list (string-to-number m)
> -	  (string-to-number d)
> -	  (string-to-number y))))
> +Argument TIME-STR is the value retrieved from BBDB.  If YYYY- is omitted
> +it will be considered unknown."
> +  (multiple-value-bind (a b c) (values-list (bbdb-split time-str "-"))
> +    (if (eq c nil)
> +        (list (string-to-number a)
> +              (string-to-number b)
> +              nil)
> +      (list (string-to-number b)
> +            (string-to-number c)
> +            (string-to-number a)))))
>  
>  (defun org-bbdb-anniv-split (str)
>    "Split multiple entries in the BBDB anniversary field.
> @@ -326,8 +331,12 @@ This is used by Org to re-create the anniversary hash table."
>  				 class org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist t))
>                             class))	; (as format string)
>                   (name (nth 1 rec))
> -                 (years (- y (car rec)))
> -                 (suffix (diary-ordinal-suffix years))
> +                 (years (if (eq (car rec) nil)
> +                            "unknown"
> +                          (- y (car rec))))
> +                 (suffix (if (eq (car rec) nil)
> +                             ""
> +                           (diary-ordinal-suffix years)))
>                   (tmp (cond
>                         ((functionp form)
>                          (funcall form name years suffix))

Thanks for adding this feature.

Carsten, could you please check this in?

The ChangeLog should mention that any customized
"org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist" has to be updated, otherwise there
will be an "Bad sexp at line 637 in /home/tb/org/diary.org:
(org-bbdb-anniversaries)" error with the new format.

Thomas

Re: [PATCH] org-bbdb: allow anniversaries with unknown years

[Christoph Groth]

Thomas Baumann <dtbaumann@yahoo.de> writes:

> Christoph Groth <cwg@falma.de> writes:
>
>> Anniversaries in BBDB can be now also specified in the format MM-DD
>> next to YYYY-MM-DD.

> The ChangeLog should mention that any customized
> "org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist" has to be updated, otherwise there
> will be an "Bad sexp at line 637 in /home/tb/org/diary.org:
> (org-bbdb-anniversaries)" error with the new format.

Yes, this patch breaks compatibility, so this should be documented in
the proper place.  I didn't as I'm not sure about the policies of
orgmode here.

Christoph