DateParser

Automatic parsing of date strings

Usage

DateParser extends the functions parse and tryparse by adding support for the types: Date, DateTime, and ZonedDateTime.

julia> using DateParser

julia> parse(DateTime, "Oct 13, 1994 17:10")
1994-10-13T17:10:00

julia> using TimeZones

julia> parse(ZonedDateTime, "Oct 13, 1994 17:10 -05:00")
1994-10-13T17:10:00-05:00

Use the fuzzy keyword argument for fuzzy parsing. When fuzzy is true any unknown tokens in the string will be ignored. By default fuzzy is set to false.

julia> tryparse(DateTime, "It is Oct 13, 1994 at around 17:10")
Nullable{DateTime}()

julia> tryparse(DateTime, "It is Oct 13, 1994 at around 17:10", fuzzy=true)
Nullable(1994-10-13T17:10:00)

If you want to fill in omitted fields with specific values use the default keyword argument. When default is unused it will be set to the the first instant of the current year.

julia> Dates.today()
2015-10-16

julia> parse(DateTime, "13:20")
2015-01-01T13:20:00

julia> parse(DateTime, "13:20", default=convert(DateTime, Dates.today()))
2015-10-29T13:20:00

julia> parse(ZonedDateTime, "Oct 13, 1994")
1994-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

julia> default = ZonedDateTime(DateTime(1994, 10, 5, 17, 10), TimeZone("Europe/Warsaw"))
1994-10-05T17:10:00+01:00

julia> parse(ZonedDateTime, "Oct 13, 1994", default=default)
1994-10-13T17:10:00+01:00

For ambiguous dates like 04/02/03 you can use the dayfirst or yearfirst keyword arguments to determine what the date should be. By default they are both set to false.

julia> parse(Date, "04/02/03")
2003-04-02

julia> parse(Date, "04/02/03", yearfirst=true)
2004-02-03

julia> parse(Date, "04/02/03", dayfirst=true)
2003-02-04

As shown above, 2 digit years will get converted to a 4 digit year near year 2000. 00 to 49 becomes 2000 to 2049 and 50 to 99 becomes 1950 to 1999.

When the string includes a recognized time zone it will automatically be parsed. If the time zone information is ambiguous when using a time zone abbreviation you can use tzmap to disambiguate the time zone information.

julia> parse(ZonedDateTime, "1994/11/13 13:00 America/Winnipeg")
1994-11-13T13:00:00-06:00

julia> parse(ZonedDateTime, "1994/11/13 13:00 CST")
ERROR: Failed to parse date

julia> map = Dict{AbstractString,TimeZone}("CST" => TimeZone("America/Winnipeg"))
Dict{AbstractString,Base.Dates.TimeZone} with 1 entry:
  "CST" => America/Winnipeg

julia> zdt = parse(ZonedDateTime, "1994/11/13 13:00 CST", tzmap=map)
1994-11-13T13:00:00-06:00

julia> Dates.format(zdt, "yyyy/mm/dd HH:MM ZZZ")
"1994/11/13 13:00 CST"