Re: [docbook-apps] Date and Time normalization

["Bob Stayton" <bobs@sagehill.net>]

Hi Richard,

EXSLT does have some date-time functions, including one that will generate the current date and time in a standard format.  Perhaps the most useful function for you will be date-format() to convert a standard date string into some other output format. 

 

But EXSLT does not include a function to parse an arbitrary string into a standard date string.  That is actual a hard problem with ambiguities that must be resolved, such as "Is 3/12/2012 to be interpreted as March 12 or December 3?".  And month names and abbreviations come in many languages and abbreviation styles.  I have not been able to find an XSLT module that can handle such conversions.  If you find something, please let me know and I will add it to the DocBook epub3 stylesheet.

 

The standard xs:date string format is CCYY-MM-DD.  If you can get your data into that format, then the EXSLT date functions can process it.

 

Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
bobs@sagehill.net

From: Kerry, Richard

Sent: Monday, December 03, 2012 10:52 AM

To: DocBook Apps Mailing List ‎[docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org]‎

Subject: [docbook-apps] Date and Time normalization

 

I want to "normalize" some dates in my DocBook.

Ie I have dates written in a number of different formats (eg 3/12/2012, 3 Dec 2012, 3 December 2012) which I'd like to normalize into one. 

This is sometimes just to achieve consistency in the output documents - ie to make them the same as my existing ones, written in Word, despite their starting out in a number of different formats.  Though in one particular case, epub3, it is to get the dates into the format required by the spec.  Epub requires dates in a particular format, and the existing eupb3 stylesheets just pass dates through as found in the source (and I have known it to leave duplicates, though I may have tweaked one of my source files to fix this as it isn't happening with my test file right now).

 

I'm expecting to do this by using a standard function to parse the dates as strings, then to use a formatting function to get the resultant date/time into a chosen format.

I can't see an XSLT 1 function to do this but I think there's one in EXSLT.

Can anyone advise on the best option to use.  Or direct me to any other options available.

 

 

Regards,

Richard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Kerry

BNCS Engineer

T: +44 (0)20 82259063

M: +44 (0)7812 325518

Room EBX 301, BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, London, W12 7RJ

richard.kerry@atos.net

uk.atos.net

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