Date::Names

Module Date::Names - Provides month and weekday names for numbers (multilingual)

SYNOPSIS

use Date::Names;
# choose the German language (English is the default)
my $d = Date::Names.new: :lang<de>;

# Default is to show full names
say $d.dow(3); # OUTPUT: «Mittwoch␤»
say $d.mon(3); # OUTPUT: «März␤»

# What abbreviations are available?
$d.sets; # OUTPUT: «name sets with values:␤  dow  dow2  mon  mon3␤»

# Choose the desired sets
$d = Date::Names.new: :lang<de>, :mset<mon3>, :dset<dow2>;
say $d.dow(4); # OUTPUT: «Do␤»
say $d.mon(4); # OUTPUT: «Apr␤»

# Arbitrarily truncate a word
say $d.mon(8,2); # OUTPUT: «Au␤»

# Given a name, return the number of month of year or day of week
say $d.mon2num('März');     # OUTPUT: «3␤»
say $d.dow2num('Mittwoch'); # OUTPUT: «3␤»

# How to say "The Year 2030"
say "{$d.the-year} 2030"; # OUTPUT: «Das Jahr 2030␤»

DESCRIPTION

Module Date::Names provides the full name of months and days of the week for the numbers 1..12 and 1..7, respectively, primarily for use with Raku's date functions.

Full names of the months and weekdays are currently available in the following thirteen languages:

Table 1. Language ISO codes (lower-case) and '.the-year' values

The '.the-year' attribute was added for use with the Calendar module to use on a cover page. The attribute values were obtained using Google's translation capability, and they may not be correct. Please file an issue if you are a native language speaker and see an error.

CAPITALIZATION and PUNCTUATION

All English month and weekday names are always capitalized. Other languages vary in capitalization depending on where the word or abbreviation is used or other factors. The names and abbreviations herein are in the most common form, but the user can always explicitly set the case by applying the Raku routines tclc, uc, or lc to the name or abbreviation.

Some of the abbreviations include an ending period since that is customary use in some languages (e.g., Spanish and Ukranian).

LIMITATIONS

Not all languages have a complete set of two- and three-letter abbreviations, and some require up to four letters for the official abbreviations.

Table 2 shows the array names for the full names and abbreviations currently available. Array names with a 2 or 3 appended are complete abbreviation sets of that length only. Array names with an 'a' appended are sets of abbreviations of mixed length. A 'Y' in a cell indicates a language has a complete set of that type of abbreviation.

Note that in some countries the term "abbreviation" is distinctly different than "code" as it applies to date names. An asterisk in a cell marks those which are technically codes rather than abbreviations. Table 3 shows the meaning of other codes used in the Table 2 cells.

The array names in Table 2 (without a sigil) are the ones to be used for the day and month array names for the Date::Names class constructor.

Table 2. Name array availability by language

Table 3 defines the note codes used in Table 2.

Note all arrays are title-cased unless marked with a 'U' or an 'L'.

Table 3. Name array cell codes and meaning

Some of the most-used names in calendar construction are the abbreviations for the days-of-the-week (dow), both two- and three-letter ones. One common example of using a two-letter dow abbreviation use is in the Linux system utility 'cal'. And very common, at least in the US, are the three-letter dow abbreviations on many printed calendars, especially ones printed by users on home printers. The five languages in Table 4 don't have a complete set of dow2 and dow3 abbreviations, so this module will automatically create one by truncating the full dow or month name to the desired length.

There are more languages that don't have a full set of two- and three-letter month abbreviations, as can be seen in Table 2. If they are required by the user, they will also be created automatically by truncation.

Table 4. Name array for truncated dow2 and dow3 languages

Note that when the Date::Names class is fully implemented in Version 3, the user will be able to specify desired array table attributes for his or her tastes (case, trailing period, truncation or padding).

Methods to see what is available

(See All-SETS for the complete list for all languages.)

use Date::Names
my $dn = Date::Names.new: :lang<nl>;
# how many non-empty data sets?
say $dn.nsets; # OUTPUT: «5␤»
# show the sets:
$dn.sets; # OUTPUT: «name sets with values:␤  dow  dow2  dow3  mon  mon3␤»
# show all sets in all available languages
$dn.show-all; # OUTPUT: see ALL-SETS.md)

Features:

1. English language default

2. Default month and weekday array choices

3. User chooses which month and weekday array to use

4. Methods for entering a valid abbreviation of weekday or month name and returning its number

5. When requesting an abbreviation that doesn't exist, the full name is automatically truncated to the desired length.

Planned features:

1. User chooses case of the output names [API complete, needs tests]

2. User can choose to have a period or not for abbreviations [API complete, needs tests]

Possible future features

1. Language-specific attributes to affect class behavior (e.g., allow raw truncation or not)

2. Add additional array names and types on a language basis automatically via a separate Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) date module

3. Features desired by users

The basic class is working (see New features and Planned features above) and will be able to control casing, absence or presence of periods on abbreviations, and truncation or padding as desired.

VERSION 3

• A CLDR module which can produce compatible language data for this module will be available.

• Additionally, the CLDR date data set names will be mapped to the current names where possible, and some short set names added if necessary.

• All CLDR data set names will also be available as aliases or native arrays.

• The Date::Names class API will be fixed and all currently planned features will be fully implemented and tested.

PULL REQUESTS

Native language speakers please submit PRs to (1) complete the existing language abbreviations, (2), correct errors, and (3) provide more languages. See the CONTRIBUTING file for details.

CORRECTIONS and SUGGESTIONS

The goal of this module is to be useful to non-English users as well as English users. The author welcomes suggestions for improvement and increased utility.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The following persons contributed to this project via PRs and comments (@name is an alias on IRC #raku):

• Moritz Lenz (@moritz, Github: moritz) - German and Norwegian Bokmﾃ･l data

• @sena_kun (Github: Altai-man) - Russian data

• Luc St-Louis (@lucs, Github: lucs) - French data

• Luis F. Uceta (Github: uzluisf) - Spanish data

• Elizabeth Mattijsen (@lizmat, Github: lizmat) - Dutch data

• Github: heince - Indonesian data

• Github: tzjan - Polish data

• Eskild Hustvedt (@Zero_Dogg, Github: zerodogg) - Norwegian Nynorsk data

• Github: altblue - Romanian data

• Andrij Mizyk (Github: andmizyk) - Ukranian data

I am grateful for their help!

REFERENCES

1. [FR] http://bdl.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?id=3617

2. [ES] http://www.wikilengua.org/index.php/Abreviaciones_en_fechas

3. [ES] http://lema.rae.es/dpd/srv/search?id=fKODyKTfZD6s0mX7bz

AUTHOR

Tom Browder, tom.browder@acm.org

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE

Copyright © 2019-2024 Tom Browder

This program is free software; you may redistribute or modify it under the same terms as Raku itself.