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DATETIME  April 2011

DATETIME April 2011

Subject:

Re: Some comments about the BNF

From:

Saašha Metsärantala <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Discussion of the Developing Date/Time Standards <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:55:27 +0200

Content-Type:

TEXT/PLAIN

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

TEXT/PLAIN (300 lines)

Hello!

Thanks for comments! Here, I reply with some clarifications and 
suggestions for simplifications.

> Just as "00" means "00xx" where xx is any two digit number, "-00" would
> mean -"00xx" where xx is any two digit number.
I wonder whether

> "00" means "00xx" where xx is any two digit number,
matches our specification. Let's remember a couple of things. The century 
note at
http://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/spec.html#centuryNote explains that

> "Century" is explicitly undefined in this specification.
which I consider is really good! The specification also explains at #203 
that

> 00 * first century
Thus, it seems that "00" would be "explicitly undefined" because the term 
"century" is explicitly undefined.

> I'd prefer to just say that there is no disinction between negative and
> positive zero, they are both zero.
Do both "+00" and "-00" mean "00"? Does this apply to centuries? What is 
the name of the century before the "first century" (noted "00"). If both 
"+00" and "-00" mean "00", we should try to clarify how we handle 
centuries around year "0001".

> "-00" would mean -"00xx" where xx is any two digit number.
This could lead to "centuries" lasting 199, 200 or 201 years (and the 
like) if it is applied together with

> there is no disinction between negative and positive zero, they are both
> zero.

I would prefer to have a 100-year long "00" century called the first 
century but still "undefined" as (0000 to 0099) or (0001 to 0100) or the 
like. I would also suggest to choose to call the century before "00" with 
the expression "-01" and thus skip "-00", but I would appreciate comments 
from several people on the list.

The next question is whether the "-01" century should be called the zeroth 
or minus-first or minus-second century - remembering that the "01" is 
(probably) the second century according the EDTF specification at #203. I 
don't really know which one is best and wonder what people on the list 
think.

> there is no disinction between negative and positive zero, they are both
> zero.
The context may also be of great importance. Let's consider 
zoneOffsetHour, where 2011-04-26T12:00:00+00:30 is not the same as 
2011-04-26T12:00:00-00:30, for example. Thus, "+00" is not the same as 
"-00" when the sign stands before a zoneOffsetHour.

> can you say with complete confidence that, say 2213-02-29 won't be a
> leap day?
No.

> in a hundred years leap day may be in November, so there could be a
> 2111-11-31.
Maybe.

None of us can be sure that 2213-02-29 or 2111-11-31 never will be valid. 
The same (?) degree of uncertainity applies to these two dates. Why, then, 
handle these two dates differently and validate one of them but not the 
other one? Our specification validates 2213-02-29 but not 2111-11-31. I 
think it is good that it doesn't validate 2111-11-31. My suggestion was 
only to stick to the Gregorian calendar as it is defined today. As of 
today, the Gregorian calendar is a usable approximation and it will 
probably still be for a few thousands of years. This is why I proposed to 
restrict "February, 29th" to leap years (as defined by today's Gregorian 
calendar) and leave the question of post-Gregorian calendars to future 
librarians.

> > > choiceListElement = date | date ".." date | earlier | later
> > choiceListElement = date "," date | date ".." date | earlier | later |
> > date "," choiceListElement | choiceListElement "," date
> Sorry, this one is not making sense to me.
My aim is to avoid choice lists with only one date, like this one

[2011]

> why do we even need yearMonth, when month alone would be sufficient.
I should have clarified my aim with that. In one way, it would be easier 
to only use month, but for long periods, I thought it would be easier to 
read /P123Y than /P1476M. As you suggest, it rises the question of c14n 
but this may be solved by a reformulation such as:

monthsDuration = oneThru11 "M"

assuming that a Gregorian year always consists of 12 months. A c14n of 
this kind would be much more difficult to formulate for daysDuration, 
though, and for the simplicity of the BNF, I suggest to keep

daysDuration = positiveInteger "D"

> > > yearMonthDay "/P" daysDuration
> > yearMonthDay "/P" ( ( yearsDuration ( monthsDuration | "0M" )) |
> > monthsDuration )? daysDuration (* maybe *)
> I don't know if I agree here. […] not every month has the same number of
> days
Obviously, my suggestion needs to be clarified. We agree about the fact 
that

> not every month has the same number of days
and that is exactly what I consider a use-case for the suggestion I 
formulated. Let's consider

189u-01-26/P7Y

In such a case, we can not compute the number of days for the duration, 
because we can not find out the number of leap days (February, 29th) this 
seven years will include. The 7-year period beginning on 1891-01-26 
includes TWO leap days (1892-02-29 and 1896-02-29), whereas the 7-year 
period beginning on 1897-01-26 has NO leap day.

Likewise, the duration in

2011-0u-26/P1M

cannot be translated to a precise number of days. I consider therefore 
that we need monthsDuration for reasons of accuracy. I also consider that 
we need yearsDuration, but for a different reason, namely readability. As 
noted above, it is easier to read /P123Y than /P1476M and a c14n of that 
should be quite straightforward using oneThru11 as in the above suggested 
definition of monthsDuration.

> what constraints there are on the components of duration needs more
> study.
This would include a distinction between dates without u's and dates with 
u's, for example.

> > not allow non-integer years, such as 1.2345e3
This would lead to a year with a value space of 1234.5 which I consider 
should be avoided.

> > longYear = "y" "-"? positiveDigit ( digit )* ( "e" yearExponent |
> > digit digit digit digit)
> positiveDigit ".e" yearExponent

> Will produce  1.7e8
I wonder what in today's BNF corresponds to the decimal "7" of this 
example, when there is no room between the dot and the "e". Anyway, I 
consider that the dot is error-prone and would prefer to write 17e7 or 
170e6 for 170 million years.

> > choosing the [...] character [...] before the qualifier
> I don't see what is gained by doing that.
I thought of it as mnemonics (or clue) on what kind of qualification we 
are dealing with, but this could be made more consistently. My aim here is 
NOT TO DEFINE any new qualification, which is out of the scope of this 
work. Instead, I consider it would be good to PREPARE for future 
extensions. If "q" (for example) was used for "reserved strings" (that is, 
strings defined by FUTURE specifications of EDTF), we could use "c" (or an 
other letter) for "locally, user-defined strings" (not further defined by 
future specifications of EDTF) and "^" for expanded names (with curly 
braces around the namespace in accordance to the de-facto standard), for 
example, such as

2011-21^"{http://www.example.org}some_definition_of_spring"

If we don't prepare for future specifications, there is an obvious risk 
that people will put both human readable and (different kinds of) machine 
readable information in qualifications if qualifications are only defined 
as "strings", in which case this information will later need to be 
"manually" reworked when future EDTF versions appear. Consistently chosen 
characters before qualifiers would avoid a lot of later work.

The only exception among these non-definitions would be a reserved word 
similar to:

q"Gregorian" (* or whatever qualifier character we choose *)

> > year = baseYear ("?" | "~") (* without parenteses around the year *)
> The intention is that "?" or "~" may be used without parenthesis when it
> applies to the entire expression and that parenthesis be used to apply
> it to a part of the expression.
Do years really need parentheses? As I understand that, the question mark 
in

2011-(04)?

would apply to April, whereas in

2011-04?

would apply to the whole date. Parentheses are important for months. But, 
could a question mark immediately following a year apply to somehting else 
than the year? Are parentheses relevant for years? If there is a semantic 
difference between

2011?

on the one hand and

(2011)?

on the other hand, or between

2011?-04

on the one hand and

(2011)?-04

on the other hand, I would appreciate a clarification about that in the 
EDTF specification.

> > the numbering #317, #3171 and #316 in our specification
> I have wanted to retain original numbering
My aim was not to focus on four digits numbers. My suggestion was to move 
#316 upwards by two rows to retain original numbering. There, at #316, I 
would also suggest a little modification:

> as in the second and third example.
as in the second, third and fourth example.

During a rereading of the BNF, I noticed a few things I comment here:

> dateTimeString = | date [...]
dateTimeString = date [...]

When it comes to lists, I would appreciate a distinction between "dates 
with x's" and "date without x's", which would allow for a more accurate 
formulation. Furthermore, I wonder whether we could allow for 
temporalExpression in lists and whether we propose any c14n within lists. 
In the meanwhile, I suggest a simplification

> [...] (inclusiveListElement ",")* later | earlier (","
> inclusiveListElement)* "," later [...]
[...] ( earlier "," )? (inclusiveListElement ",")* later [...]

and a necessary reformulation

> consecutives | date ("," inclusiveListElement)+
( inclusiveListElement "," )* ( consecutives | date "," 
inclusiveListElement | inclusiveListElement "," date ) ( "," 
inclusiveListElement )*

This would thus allow for lists such as:

{2011..2013, 2015}

Such lists are excluded by today's BNF. I also wonder whether we could 
clarify and formulate the reasons behind the SYNTACTIC differences between 
inclusive lists and choice lists.

An other suggestion is also to reformulate the second example of #317, 
otherwise, the BNF will grow in complexity if it must allow such 
constucts.

> uncertOrApprox = date ("?" | "~")
uncertOrApprox = ( dateAndTime | longYear | yearMonth | yearMonthDay ) ( 
"~" | "?" ) ( qualifier )?

This would allow for uncertain or approximate long years and also avoid 
constructs like

2011?? (* with double question marks *)

or

(2011)??

We could prepare for (without defining) the reasons behind the 
uncertainity or approximation when combined with

qualifier = ( "q" reservedString | "c" userDefinedString | "^" 
expandedName ) (* or whatever qualifier characters we choose *)

expandedName = "{" xs:anyURI "}" xs:NCName

reservedString = xs:token

userDefinedString = xs:token

Some simplifications:

> oneThru14 = oneThru13" | "14"

> oneThru23 = oneThru14 | "15" | [...] | "23"
oneThru23 = oneThru13 | "14" | "15" | [...] | "23" (* one line is enough 
*)

> oneThru59 = oneThru31 | "33" | [...] | "59"
oneThru59 = oneThru31 | "32" | "33" | [...] | "59" (* "32" is missing *)

The two following ones are unused and could be deleted:

> zeroThru60 = zeroThru59 | "60"

> nonNegativeInteger = "0" | positiveInteger

Comments are welcome!

Regards!

Saašha,

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