Date Parsing Rule Set¶

Overview¶

This rule set defines how to interpret a text input representing a date into three components—year, month, and day—based on a specified order.

Input Elements¶

1. Date String: A text input containing the date (e.g., "1-2-3", "010223", "today"). May include leading spaces, trailing non-date characters (e.g., letters), or consist only of separators/spaces.
2. Date Order: A three-letter code defining the arrangement of date components (case-sensitive):
   • Valid codes: "mdy" (month-day-year), "dmy" (day-month-year), "ymd" (year-month-day), "myd" (month-year-day), "dym" (day-year-month), "ydm" (year-day-month).
3. Current Year: A number used as the year when the year component is omitted.
4. Window Year Base: A reference year for adjusting two-digit years.

Output¶

• Complete Date: A set of three numbers: [year, month, day], representing the date components.
• Unknown Value: An "unknown" indicator if the input contains only separators (".", "/", "-") or spaces.
• Error: A specific error code for invalid inputs or unmet requirements (see Errors section).

Parsing Rules¶

1. Check for Unknown Value:
   • If the Date String contains only separators (".", "/", "-") or spaces, return the "unknown" indicator.
2. Check for Today Value:
   • If the Date String matches "today" (case-insensitive, allowing leading spaces), return the current date’s year, month, and day.
3. Extract Date Portion:
   • Identify the date portion by capturing all consecutive digits (0-9) and separators (".", "/", "-") after any leading spaces, stopping at the first non-date character (e.g., letter, space, or other symbol).
   • Example: " 1-2-3xyz" captures "1-2-3"; "123456ab" captures "123456"; "abc" captures nothing.
   • If no valid date portion (digits or separators) is found, raise error #85 (invalid format).
4. Identify Components:
   • With Separators (if ".", "/", or "-" is present in the date portion):
     • Split the date portion into components at each separator, collecting as many as possible.
     • Each component is a sequence of digits, optionally starting with a hyphen ("-") for negative numbers.
     • Stop parsing components at a non-digit (excluding separators).
     • Example: "1-2-3" yields "1", "2", "3"; "-1--2--3" yields "-1", "-2", "-3"; "1-2-3-4" yields "1", "2", "3", "4".
   • Without Separators:
     • After discarding leading spaces, calculate the length of the entire string (including trailing non-date characters).
     • Divide the date portion into up to three components, assuming two-digit lengths for each ([2,2,2] split).
     • If the string length (post-leading spaces) is exactly eight characters, assign four digits to the year component based on Date Order ([4,2,2] split).
     • Example:
       • "123456" (length=6) splits as "12", "34", "56" for "ymd" (year=12, month=34, day=56).
       • " 12345678" (length=8) splits nibh as "1234", "56", "78" for "ymd" (year=1234, month=56, day=78).
       • "12345" (length=5) splits as "12", "34", "5".
       • "1234" (length=4) splits as "12", "34".
5. Adjust Component Count:
   • Three Components: Proceed to interpretation.
   • Two Components: Insert an empty year component at the position specified by Date Order (e.g., "1-2" with "mdy" becomes "1", "2", "").
   • Fewer than Two or More than Three: Raise error #85 (invalid format).
6. Assign Components:
   • Map components to year, month, and day based on Date Order:
     • "mdy": first=month, second=day, third=year
     • "dmy": first=day, second=month, third=year
     • "ymd": first=year, second=month, third=day
     • "myd": first=month, second=year, third=day
     • "dym": first=day, second=year, third=month
     • "ydm": first=year, second=day, third=month
7. Process Year:
   • Empty Year: Use Current Year as the year.
   • Non-Empty Year:
     • Convert the year’s text to a number (see Number Conversion).
     • If the text has one or two characters, apply year windowing (see separate document).
     • If the text has three or more characters, use the number as-is.
     • If the resulting year is zero, raise error #79 (invalid year).
8. Process Month and Day:
   • Convert month and day texts to numbers (see Number Conversion).
   • If month or day text is empty, raise error #85 (invalid format).
   • Ensure month is between 1 and 12, else raise error #80 (invalid month).
   • Ensure day is valid for the given year and month (e.g., 29 for February in leap years), else raise error #81 (invalid day).

Number Conversion¶

• Transform a component’s text into a number.
• Treat a lone hyphen ("-") as 0.
• Ensure the number is between -32768 and 32767.
• If the text cannot be converted to a number (e.g., non-numeric) or the number is outside [-32768, 32767], raise error #85 (invalid format).

Errors¶

• 79: Year is zero.
• 80: Month is not between 1 and 12.
• 81: Day is not valid for the given year and month.
• 85: Invalid input, including:
  • No valid date portion (e.g., no digits or separators).
  • Fewer than two components.
  • Empty month or day components.
  • Text that cannot be converted to numbers.
  • Numbers outside [-32768, 32767].
• 299: Invalid Date Order (not one of the six valid codes).

Examples¶

1. Valid Date with Separators:
   • Date String: "01-02-23", Date Order: "mdy", Current Year: 2025, Window Year Base: 1950
   • Output: [2023, 1, 2] (year=23 windowed to 2023).
2. Missing Year:
   • Date String: "01-02", Date Order: "mdy", Current Year: 2025, Window Year Base: 1950
   • Output: [2025, 1, 2] (uses Current Year).
3. Separator-less (6-digit):
   • Date String: "010223", Date Order: "mdy", Current Year: 2025, Window Year Base: 1950
   • Output: [2023, 1, 2] (split as "01", "02", "23").
4. Separator-less (8-digit):
   • Date String: " 20010102", Date Order: "ymd", Current Year: 2025, Window Year Base: 1950
   • Output: [2001, 1, 2] (length=8, split as "2001", "01", "02").
5. Today Value:
   • Date String: " today ", Date Order: "mdy", Current Year: 2025, Window Year Base: 1950
   • Output: Current date, e.g., [2025, 4, 15] on April 15, 2025.
6. Unknown Value:
   • Date String: " / -.", Date Order: "mdy", Current Year: 2025, Window Year Base: 1950
   • Output: Unknown indicator.
7. Trailing Non-Date Characters:
   • Date String: "1-2-3xyz", Date Order: "mdy", Current Year: 2025, Window Year Base: 1950
   • Output: [2023, 1, 2] (parses "1-2-3", ignores "xyz").
8. Negative Numbers:
   • Date String: "-1--2--3", Date Order: "mdy", Current Year: 2025, Window Year Base: 1950
   • Output: [-3, -1, -2].
9. Invalid Inputs:
   • Date String: "13-02-23", Date Order: "mdy" → Error #80 (month=13 invalid).
   • Date String: "01-32-23", Date Order: "mdy" → Error #81 (day=32 invalid).
   • Date String: "abc", Date Order: "mdy" → Error #85 (no valid date portion).

In OE, the today string in date parsing accepts leading and trailing spaces (e.g., today ), but in FWD, it only accepts today without any spaces.

Similar problem with now, illustrated by the following additional tests:

    @Test.
    METHOD PUBLIC VOID testNow():
        testParseFailure("now", 12003).
        testParseFailure("NOW", 12003).
        testParseFailure("   now", 12003).
        testParseFailure("   now   ", 12003).
    END METHOD.

In OE, the now string in date parsing accepts any number of leading and trailing spaces (e.g., now ), but in FWD, it rejects spaces and incorrectly reports error 85 instead of the expected error 12003.

I simplify error handling by throwing exceptions at various points in the method body (as exceptions are designed for this purpose) and then handling all of them in a single catch block using EM.recordOrThrowError(). This avoids the need to define incorrect return values and analyze method return values in multiple places.

Throwing exceptions is expensive at runtime and this approach will introduce potential slowdown. We don't want to add the use of exceptions here. You can create helper methods that generate specific errors using recordOrThrowError() and call them from multiple places as needed.

Greg Shah wrote:

I simplify error handling by throwing exceptions at various points in the method body (as exceptions are designed for this purpose) and then handling all of them in a single catch block using EM.recordOrThrowError(). This avoids the need to define incorrect return values and analyze method return values in multiple places.

Throwing exceptions is expensive at runtime and this approach will introduce potential slowdown. We don't want to add the use of exceptions here. You can create helper methods that generate specific errors using recordOrThrowError() and call them from multiple places as needed.

Fixed in rev. 15864.

Vladimir Tsichevski wrote:

After review succeeds, I am going to sort all members of the date class to match the GCD requirements.

Done in rev. 15865.

The same issues occur when setting the SCREEN-VALUE attribute of a date FILL-IN, because the SCREEN-VALUE parsing logic uses the same date parsing code as the DATE function.

Patch 9906a addresses these issues as well.

Can this be merged? This blocks the #9846 customer issue.

What testing has been done?

Greg Shah wrote:

What testing has been done?

The TestParse.cls has 600+ test cases.

Vladimir Tsichevski wrote:

Greg Shah wrote:

What testing has been done?

The TestParse.cls has 600+ test cases.

I understand. But as I stated in #9906-10:

Even so, this code will need to be tested across multiple applications to ensure we don't break something that is not represented in the tests.

Let's test ChUI regression with this and also let's test the application for #9846.

Greg Shah wrote:

Vladimir Tsichevski wrote:

Greg Shah wrote:

What testing has been done?

The TestParse.cls has 600+ test cases.

I understand. But as I stated in #9906-10:

Even so, this code will need to be tested across multiple applications to ensure we don't break something that is not represented in the tests.

Let's test ChUI regression with this and also let's test the application for #9846.

For ChUI I usually ask help from Hynek.
As for #9846, the 9906a change itself does not fix #9846, but the fix for #9846 will depend on correct date parsing.

Vladimir, there are build errors:

[ant:javac] /home/hc/gcd/p2j_repo/review/src/com/goldencode/p2j/util/datetime.java:134: error: cannot find symbol
[ant:javac] import com.goldencode.p2j.util.date.ContextIndependentDate;
[ant:javac]                                    ^
[ant:javac]   symbol:   class ContextIndependentDate
[ant:javac]   location: class date
[ant:javac] /home/hc/gcd/p2j_repo/review/src/com/goldencode/p2j/util/datetimetz.java:138: error: cannot find symbol
[ant:javac] import com.goldencode.p2j.util.date.ContextIndependentDate;

Hynek Cihlar wrote:

Vladimir, there are build errors:

[...]

The ContextIndependentDate class was inadvertently removed during a manual code tree merge. Restored in rev 16020. Please, update and try again.

9906a passed ChUI regression tests.

Rebased to latest trunk, fixed after rebase to make it compile. Revno is now 16235.

Can we merge this change now? Fixing #9846 depends on this.

Vladimir Tsichevski wrote:

Rebased to latest trunk, fixed after rebase to make it compile. Revno is now 16235.

Can we merge this change now? Fixing #9846 depends on this.

Was all regression testing finished?

Hynek Cihlar wrote:

Vladimir Tsichevski wrote:

Rebased to latest trunk, fixed after rebase to make it compile. Revno is now 16235.

Can we merge this change now? Fixing #9846 depends on this.

Was all regression testing finished?

I tested with our big customer application, and found that I need to restore one previously removed method and revert method access back to public for methods used in converted code.

After this everything worked OK with this application.

The new revision is 16237. No functional changes in this revision. So, I hope we can merge the change now.

Hynek Cihlar wrote:

Please merge 9906a to trunk.

Merged as rev. 16241

This change introduced a regression due to overly restrictive access to date methods (see #7143-1728).
I created 9906b to fix this.

Vladimir Tsichevski wrote:

This change introduced a regression due to overly restrictive access to date methods (see #7143-1728).
I created 9906b to fix this.

Fixed in 9906b rev. 16259.

Hynek, please review. Could 9906b rev. 16259. be merged into the trunk?

There is no active 9906b branch to review.

There is no active 9906b branch to review.

I approved merge in #7143-1731 after reviewing in #7143. I wasn't aware of this task because I was not a watcher. The changes in 9906b redo the "date methods" from protected to public and are safe.

Vladimir: Please post the commit message here and we can close the task.

Greg Shah wrote:

Vladimir: Please post the commit message here and we can close the task.

The branch 9906b was merged to trunk 27.20.2025 as rev. 16259 and archived.