fractional hours for timestamps?

fractional hours for timestamps?

[Greg Troxel]

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I tried to set a timestamp "thu 12:00+1.5", using C-c . and typing the
characters in quotes.  What I got was
<2010-08-12 Thu 12:00-13:00>

I found that 12:00+1:30 works fine, but it seems like 1.5 should be
parsed.

Separately, I'd like 24-hour time without colons to work.  "thu 1400"
seems unambiguous, but just shows up as thursday without a time.

I don't know how hard these are or if there are reasons not to, but I
thought I'd throw out the idea.

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Re: fractional hours for timestamps?

[Bastien]

Hi Greg,

Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com> writes:

> I tried to set a timestamp "thu 12:00+1.5", using C-c . and typing the
> characters in quotes.  What I got was
> <2010-08-12 Thu 12:00-13:00>
>
> I found that 12:00+1:30 works fine, but it seems like 1.5 should be
> parsed.
>
> Separately, I'd like 24-hour time without colons to work.  "thu 1400"
> seems unambiguous, but just shows up as thursday without a time.
>
> I don't know how hard these are or if there are reasons not to, but I
> thought I'd throw out the idea.

It is certainly harder to make Org's parsing capacity even more elastic
than to let our brains parse this directly :)

12:00+1.5 looks weird to me and computing 1.5->1:30 is straightforward.
Same for 1400->14:00.  

But maybe other people think otherwise...  

-- 
 Bastien

Re: fractional hours for timestamps?

[Łukasz Stelmach]

Bastien <bastien.guerry@wikimedia.fr> writes:

> Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com> writes:
>
>> I tried to set a timestamp "thu 12:00+1.5", using C-c . and typing the
>> characters in quotes.  What I got was
>> <2010-08-12 Thu 12:00-13:00>
>>
>> I found that 12:00+1:30 works fine, but it seems like 1.5 should be
>> parsed.
>>
>> Separately, I'd like 24-hour time without colons to work.  "thu 1400"
>> seems unambiguous, but just shows up as thursday without a time.
>>
>> I don't know how hard these are or if there are reasons not to, but I
>> thought I'd throw out the idea.
>
> It is certainly harder to make Org's parsing capacity even more elastic
> than to let our brains parse this directly :)
>
> 12:00+1.5 looks weird to me and computing 1.5->1:30 is straightforward.
> Same for 1400->14:00.  
>
> But maybe other people think otherwise...  

I think Greg's point is about entering data using only numeric keypad. I
can confirm that I have considered these issues (esp. 1400
vs. 14:00). Fractional hours don't seem to be that easy as there are
countries like Poland where you use comma as decimal point (working with
Emacs' built in calc is a pain) which earns another few lines for
parsing code.

-- 
Miłego dnia,
Łukasz Stelmach

Re: Re: fractional hours for timestamps?

[Bastien]

Łukasz Stelmach <lukasz.stelmach@iem.pw.edu.pl> writes:

> I think Greg's point is about entering data using only numeric keypad. I
> can confirm that I have considered these issues (esp. 1400
> vs. 14:00). Fractional hours don't seem to be that easy as there are
> countries like Poland where you use comma as decimal point (working with
> Emacs' built in calc is a pain) which earns another few lines for
> parsing code.

AFAIC, I won't mess with this part of the code, I think it's quite easy
enough to enter 14:00 instead of 1400...  patch welcome ;)

-- 
 Bastien

Re: fractional hours for timestamps?

[Łukasz Stelmach]

Bastien <bastien.guerry@wikimedia.fr> writes:

> Łukasz Stelmach <lukasz.stelmach@iem.pw.edu.pl> writes:
>
>> I think Greg's point is about entering data using only numeric keypad. I
>> can confirm that I have considered these issues (esp. 1400
>> vs. 14:00). Fractional hours don't seem to be that easy as there are
>> countries like Poland where you use comma as decimal point (working with
>> Emacs' built in calc is a pain) which earns another few lines for
>> parsing code.
>
> AFAIC, I won't mess with this part of the code, I think it's quite easy
> enough to enter 14:00 instead of 1400...

Not really in fact if you use keypad. It's not about the number of
keystrokes but their layout. Try it.

>  patch welcome ;)
ASAP ;)

-- 
Miłego dnia,
Łukasz Stelmach

Re: Re: fractional hours for timestamps?

[Carsten Dominik]

On Aug 13, 2010, at 11:43 AM, Łukasz Stelmach wrote:

> Bastien <bastien.guerry@wikimedia.fr> writes:
>
>> Łukasz Stelmach <lukasz.stelmach@iem.pw.edu.pl> writes:
>>
>>> I think Greg's point is about entering data using only numeric  
>>> keypad. I
>>> can confirm that I have considered these issues (esp. 1400
>>> vs. 14:00). Fractional hours don't seem to be that easy as there are
>>> countries like Poland where you use comma as decimal point  
>>> (working with
>>> Emacs' built in calc is a pain) which earns another few lines for
>>> parsing code.
>>
>> AFAIC, I won't mess with this part of the code, I think it's quite  
>> easy
>> enough to enter 14:00 instead of 1400...
>
> Not really in fact if you use keypad. It's not about the number of
> keystrokes but their layout. Try it.

Hi Lukasz,

the problem with making the parser more general is that it might
start to interpret years as durations and the other way round.
You are welcome to submit a patch - but it would have to be a careful  
one.

- Carsten

Re: fractional hours for timestamps?

[Richard Riley]

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

> On Aug 13, 2010, at 11:43 AM, Łukasz Stelmach wrote:
>
>> Bastien <bastien.guerry@wikimedia.fr> writes:
>>
>>> Łukasz Stelmach <lukasz.stelmach@iem.pw.edu.pl> writes:
>>>
>>>> I think Greg's point is about entering data using only numeric  
>>>> keypad. I
>>>> can confirm that I have considered these issues (esp. 1400
>>>> vs. 14:00). Fractional hours don't seem to be that easy as there are
>>>> countries like Poland where you use comma as decimal point  
>>>> (working with
>>>> Emacs' built in calc is a pain) which earns another few lines for
>>>> parsing code.
>>>
>>> AFAIC, I won't mess with this part of the code, I think it's quite  
>>> easy
>>> enough to enter 14:00 instead of 1400...
>>
>> Not really in fact if you use keypad. It's not about the number of
>> keystrokes but their layout. Try it.
>
> Hi Lukasz,
>
> the problem with making the parser more general is that it might
> start to interpret years as durations and the other way round.
> You are welcome to submit a patch - but it would have to be a careful  
> one.
>
> - Carsten

I'm curious if using the decimal point on the numeric keyboard instead
of the ":" colon would be the simplest solution in time durations too
... e.g 14:00+1,30. (add one hour 30 minutes). But knowing how clever the
parser is that might step on the shoes of other hidden cleverness I am
unaware of.