From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG  Wed Sep  8 12:30:33 2004
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96DB916A4CE
	for <current@freebsd.org>; Wed,  8 Sep 2004 12:30:33 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from speicher.org (speicher.org [208.199.76.238])
	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C8F6043D41
	for <current@freebsd.org>; Wed,  8 Sep 2004 12:30:32 +0000 (GMT)
	(envelope-from geoff@speicher.org)
Received: from speicher.org (localhost [127.0.0.1])
	by speicher.org (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i88CUULl075659;
	Wed, 8 Sep 2004 08:30:30 -0400 (EDT)
	(envelope-from geoff@speicher.org)
Received: (from geoff@localhost)
	by speicher.org (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id i88CUT5M075658;
	Wed, 8 Sep 2004 08:30:29 -0400 (EDT)
	(envelope-from geoff)
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 08:30:29 -0400
From: Geoff Speicher <geoff@speicher.org>
To: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk>
Message-ID: <20040908123029.GA74545@sirius.speicher.org>
References: <38933.1094640660@critter.freebsd.dk>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <38933.1094640660@critter.freebsd.dk>
User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i
cc: current@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Idea for date(1) improvement.
X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1
Precedence: list
List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current
	<freebsd-current.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current>,
	<mailto:freebsd-current-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-current@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-current-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current>,
	<mailto:freebsd-current-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 12:30:33 -0000

On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 12:51:00PM +0200, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> 
> I have sometimes needed to get the date of yesterday or last monday
> and so on for creating filenames.
> 
> We have this very flexible code in at(1) and cvs(1) for specifying
> time.
> Anyone up for making it possible to say:
>
>   date -w "2 days ago"

FWIW, there's a public-domain implementation that PHP uses for its
strtotime() function (http://php.net/strtotime), and it appears to do
all/most of what /usr/src/usr.bin/at/parsetime.c does, plus more (time
zones, for example).

	http://cvs.php.net/co.php/php-src/ext/standard/parsedate.y?r=1.56

Geoff