TimeParser - is a parser for date and time written in natural language for PHP.

How to use

1. Install through composer: `composer require wapmorgan/time-parser`

2. Parse some input from user and receive a `DateTime` object.
   $datetime = wapmorgan\TimeParser\TimeParser::parse(fgets(STDIN), 'all');
   

   Second arg is a language. Applicable values: * 'all' - scan for all available languages. Use it when you can not predict user's preferred language. * 'english' - scan only as english time. * array('english', 'russian') - scan as english and then the rest as russian time. * 'nonexistent-language' - force scan with system strtotime() function. In case of strtotime() scan failure, current DateTime will be returned.

Examples of dates written in natural language that will work.

в 15:12:13 в следующий понедельник в следующем году в феврале через 15 часов через 10 минут через 11 секунд через 5 лет через 2 недели через 1 день через 10 месяцев
at 15:12:13 next monday next year in february in 15 hours in 10 minutes in 11 seconds in 5 years in 2 weeks in 1 day in 10 months

They both will be parsed and result DateTime will contain right date:

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 06:22:24 +0400

Languages support

For this moment four languages supported: Russian, English, French and German. Two languages support is in progress: Chinese, Spanish. Their rules are in rules catalog so you can improve TimeParser by adding new language or by improving existing one. For developing reasons you may would like to see process of parsing. To do this call related methods:

TimeParser::enableDebug();
// and
TimeParser::disableDebug();

Parsable substrings

To understand, how it works, look at substrings separately:

• at 15:12:13 - absolute time
• next monday or this friday - absolute date
• next year or 2016 year - absolute date
• in february or next month - absolute date
• next week - absolute date
• in 15 hours - relative time
• in 10 minutes - relative time
• in 11 seconds - relative time
• in 2 weeks - relative date
• in 1 day - relative date
• in 10 months - relative date

Alphabetic unit values

If you set third argument of parse() to true, TimeParser will be able to parse alphabetic values:

• in fifteen hours
• in ten minutes
• in eleven seconds
• in five years
• in two weeks
• in one day
• in ten months

If you want to disallow users use words instead of numbers, save default settings or set third argument of parse() to false. In this case alphabetic values will not be parsed. Numbers up to 20 are available to use.

Cautions

1. Library is very sensitive to all sorts of rubbish: extra spaces between numbers and prepositions, etc.
2. Implies that the incoming data comes in lower case.

ToDo

• [ ] Tests.
• [ ] Try to parse combinations: in 5 hours and 2 minutes.
• [x] Try to parse alphabetic offsets: in five hours and через пять часов.

Languages ToDo

• [x] Chinese - check hieroglyphs.
• [x] Spanish - check prepositions.
• [ ] Portuguese
• [ ] Arabic
• [ ] Korean