Proposal

This repository is a proposal for the creation of sometime.js which is intended to be a library for parsing and representing inexact dates and times.

Comments and feedback most welcome.

Vague requirements

Ideally this library would:

• Parse natural language dates to the fullest extent possible
• Represent inexact dates in a useful (hopefully standard) way
• Support parsing relative dates
• (Maybe) support intervals
• Not have dependencies on monolithic date libraries like moment.js
• Stay focused on parsing, and avoid implementing a formatter
• Collections of parsed dates/times (including intervals and inexact dates) should be sortable

Some strings which should be parsable:

• Late 2008
• August 2009
• November 24, 2009
• November-December 2009
• 2010
• Three years ago

Prior art

Parsing libraries

There are a few libraries with similar aims:

• date
• chrono

The one issue all existing libraries seem to have is that they are incapable of storing or representing in-exact dates. The Chrono library comes closeset to the mark in this respect.

Representation of inexact dates

The closest thing to a standard for representing inexact dates and times seems to be the EDTF standard proposed by Library of Congress.

Notes

Potentially useful implementations:

• EDTF validator in JS