Support for AM/PM in DateTime variable formats

[martinhalford]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Currently, it is only possible to display DateTime variables in 24 Hr format (e.g. 15:00) whereas some end-users may expect to see times displayed in AM/PM format (e.g. 3:00 pm).

Describe the solution you'd like
Current DateTime format options are defined at https://docs.accordproject.org/docs/markup-variables.html

Would be great if DateTime variables supported the following additional format options:

t - The first character of the AM/PM designator. (Example: A or P)
tt - The AM/PM designator. (Example AM or PM)

Of course, if the t or tt format were to be used then the PM hour values would need to be displayed using their 12-hour values instead of their 24-hour values (e.g. 3:00 PM instead of 15:00 PM).

[jeromesimeon]

To stay aligned with moment.js we should probably use a A along with h hh if we want to support this. I'm curious about the single "A" or "P" I have never seen that used before.

Note that we do support 12-hours values from 1 to 12 with h and hh (despite what the documentation says).

[martinhalford]

Hi @jeromesimeon, As an old .NET C# developer, t and tt were what we used for AM/PM designators. To be fair, I only ever used tt as, like you, I never saw A or P used anywhere. However, the language supported it (for whatever reason).

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/custom-date-and-time-format-strings#tSpecifier

Anyway...it was just a suggestion. If moment.js follows some other convention, then let's use that.

Having said that, there's no real point adding support for AM/PM unless we can add support for 12-hour values too. Users would not expect to see 15:00 PM, as that would be somewhat confusing.

Sounds like this is not an easy enhancement?

[jeromesimeon]

https://www.npl.co.uk/resources/q-a/is-midnight-12am-or-12pm

[jeromesimeon]

Added in #319

Semantics notes:

• 12:14am on a Tuesday is 00:14 on that Tuesday
• 12:00am on a Tuesday is 00:00 on that Tuesday
• 12:00pm on a Tuesday is 12:00 (noon) on that Tuesday

[jeromesimeon]

Released in https://github.com/accordproject/cicero/releases/tag/v0.21.7 Let me know if it works.

[martinhalford]

@jeromesimeon - We are using this new AM/PM format in our real estate contract templates now. Works like a charm! Thank you!!