GNU bug report logs - #53702
27.1; diary does not display some entries in european style

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in european style
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2022 17:21:54 +0100

Diary entries are not parsed by M-x diary if:
- calendar-date-style is set to european (rather than american)
AND
- the date is written as "3 Feb" (rather than 3/2)
AND
- the time is written as "18.00" (rather than 18:00)

At least, this is what I have found by trial and error.  I looked at the code in appt.el and diary-lib.el but was not able to find the culprit...

To reproduce:

$ emacs -Q -nw --load=appt-bug.el

You will see that only two european entries are shown (t1 and t2).

Then exit Emacs, comment out the second line in appt-bug-el and rerun Emacs as above: you will see four american entries (t1, t2, t3, t4).


================ appt-bug.el
(setq diary-file "~/appt-bug-diary"
      calendar-date-style 'european
      )
(load-library "diary-lib")
(diary-list-entries (list 2 3 (decoded-time-year (decode-time))) 1)


================ appt-bug-diary
	-*-diary-*-

3 Feb	18:00 t1 works (european)

3/2	18.00 t2 works (european)

3 Feb	18.00 t3 does not work (european)

3 Feb
	18.00 t4 does not work (european)

Feb 3	18:00 t1 works (american)

2/3	18.00 t2 works (american)

Feb 3	18.00 t3 works (american)

Feb 3
	18.00 t4 works (american)

Message #8 received at 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
To: Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in
 european style
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2022 01:39:22 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org> writes:

> (setq diary-file "~/appt-bug-diary"
>       calendar-date-style 'european
>       )

The recipe should better call the function `calendar-set-date-style'
because "setting this variable [calendar-date-style] directly does not
take effect (if the calendar package is already loaded).

But that doesn't prevent the issue - the report is valid nonetheless.
One already sees in the diary file that the problematic lines are not
fontified.

The manual describes that different time formats can be mixed, and

  3 Feb	18.00 t3 does not work (european)

is not invalid AFAIU (`diary-entry-time': "A period (.) can be used
instead of a colon (:) to separate the hour and minute parts.").

The problem is actually that the date part is rejected because the time
format is not recognized by `diary-european-date-forms'.  This seems to
fix it:

[0001-WIP-Try-to-fix-53702.patch (text/x-diff, inline)]

From 07a072db84ec722e4e77d02c4d6aa77cafc19354 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2022 01:08:43 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] WIP: Try to fix #53702

---
 lisp/calendar/calendar.el | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
index 48d308afad..d578d1a251 100644
--- a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
+++ b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
@@ -800,7 +800,7 @@ diary-american-date-forms
 (defcustom diary-european-date-forms
   '((day "/" month "[^/0-9]")
     (day "/" month "/" year "[^0-9]")
-    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:aApP]\\)\\)")
+    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:.aApP]\\)\\)")
     (day " *" monthname " *" year "[^0-9:aApP]")
     (dayname "\\W"))
   "List of pseudo-patterns describing the European style of dates.
--
2.30.2

[Message part 3 (text/plain, inline)]

See also Bug#13536 which touched that definition.

We must be sure that the entries of `diary-european-date-forms' are
still mutually exclusive.  `year' never contains a dot "." (that regexp
is built in `diary-list-entries-2'), so I guess we are save... right?

Michael.

Message #11 received at 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
To: 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in
 european style
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2022 01:39:22 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org> writes:

> (setq diary-file "~/appt-bug-diary"
>       calendar-date-style 'european
>       )

The recipe should better call the function `calendar-set-date-style'
because "setting this variable [calendar-date-style] directly does not
take effect (if the calendar package is already loaded).

But that doesn't prevent the issue - the report is valid nonetheless.
One already sees in the diary file that the problematic lines are not
fontified.

The manual describes that different time formats can be mixed, and

  3 Feb	18.00 t3 does not work (european)

is not invalid AFAIU (`diary-entry-time': "A period (.) can be used
instead of a colon (:) to separate the hour and minute parts.").

The problem is actually that the date part is rejected because the time
format is not recognized by `diary-european-date-forms'.  This seems to
fix it:

[0001-WIP-Try-to-fix-53702.patch (text/x-diff, inline)]

From 07a072db84ec722e4e77d02c4d6aa77cafc19354 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2022 01:08:43 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] WIP: Try to fix #53702

---
 lisp/calendar/calendar.el | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
index 48d308afad..d578d1a251 100644
--- a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
+++ b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
@@ -800,7 +800,7 @@ diary-american-date-forms
 (defcustom diary-european-date-forms
   '((day "/" month "[^/0-9]")
     (day "/" month "/" year "[^0-9]")
-    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:aApP]\\)\\)")
+    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:.aApP]\\)\\)")
     (day " *" monthname " *" year "[^0-9:aApP]")
     (dayname "\\W"))
   "List of pseudo-patterns describing the European style of dates.
--
2.30.2

[Message part 3 (text/plain, inline)]

See also Bug#13536 which touched that definition.

We must be sure that the entries of `diary-european-date-forms' are
still mutually exclusive.  `year' never contains a dot "." (that regexp
is built in `diary-list-entries-2'), so I guess we are save... right?

Michael.

Message #14 received at 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
To: 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in
 european style
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2022 04:41:25 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello again,

sorry for the duplicated last message - my first message had bounced,
but apparently only from the poster's address.

Ok - small addition: the dot should be added in the subsequent line as
well:

[0001-WIP-Try-to-fix-53702.patch (text/x-diff, inline)]

From 5346b90b9884b9190cfe77310f2444ed35d182eb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2022 01:08:43 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] WIP: Try to fix #53702

---
 lisp/calendar/calendar.el | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
index 48d308afad..0605e4bf51 100644
--- a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
+++ b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
@@ -800,8 +800,8 @@ diary-american-date-forms
 (defcustom diary-european-date-forms
   '((day "/" month "[^/0-9]")
     (day "/" month "/" year "[^0-9]")
-    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:aApP]\\)\\)")
-    (day " *" monthname " *" year "[^0-9:aApP]")
+    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:.aApP]\\)\\)")
+    (day " *" monthname " *" year "[^0-9:.aApP]")
     (dayname "\\W"))
   "List of pseudo-patterns describing the European style of dates.
 The defaults are: DAY/MONTH; DAY/MONTH/YEAR; DAY MONTHNAME;
--
2.30.2

[Message part 3 (text/plain, inline)]

I'm now a bit worried about this paragraph in
(info "(emacs) Appointments"):

|    You can write times in am/pm style (with ‘12:00am’ standing for
| midnight and ‘12:00pm’ standing for noon), or 24-hour European/military
| style.  You need not be consistent; your diary file can have a mixture
| of the two styles.  Times must be at the beginning of diary entries if
| they are to be recognized.

Military style is 1200 for 12:00am, right?  This definitely can't be
used everywhere when using the European style because lines get
ambiguous: for digits could mean a year - or a military time in a line
not specifying a year.  Should that paragraph be corrected?

Michael.

Message #19 received at 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
To: 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in
 european style
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2022 03:00:01 +0100

Hello Francesco,

did you have the chance to try if that patch (repeated below) fixes your
problem?

Regards,

Michael.

> From 5346b90b9884b9190cfe77310f2444ed35d182eb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
> Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2022 01:08:43 +0100
> Subject: [PATCH] WIP: Try to fix #53702
>
> ---
>  lisp/calendar/calendar.el | 4 ++--
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
> index 48d308afad..0605e4bf51 100644
> --- a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
> +++ b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
> @@ -800,8 +800,8 @@ diary-american-date-forms
>  (defcustom diary-european-date-forms
>    '((day "/" month "[^/0-9]")
>      (day "/" month "/" year "[^0-9]")
> -    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:aApP]\\)\\)")
> -    (day " *" monthname " *" year "[^0-9:aApP]")
> +    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:.aApP]\\)\\)")
> +    (day " *" monthname " *" year "[^0-9:.aApP]")
>      (dayname "\\W"))
>    "List of pseudo-patterns describing the European style of dates.
>  The defaults are: DAY/MONTH; DAY/MONTH/YEAR; DAY MONTHNAME;
> --
> 2.30.2
>

Message #22 received at 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
Cc: Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org>, 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in
 european style
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2022 15:29:45 +0200

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de> writes:

> did you have the chance to try if that patch (repeated below) fixes your
> problem?

This was half a year ago, but I see that Francesco wasn't in the CCs, so
perhaps he never got the message?

Francesco, can you try Michael's patch and see whether that fixes the
problem?

> I'm now a bit worried about this paragraph in
> (info "(emacs) Appointments"):
>
> |    You can write times in am/pm style (with ‘12:00am’ standing for
> | midnight and ‘12:00pm’ standing for noon), or 24-hour European/military
> | style.  You need not be consistent; your diary file can have a mixture
> | of the two styles.  Times must be at the beginning of diary entries if
> | they are to be recognized.
>
> Military style is 1200 for 12:00am, right?  This definitely can't be
> used everywhere when using the European style because lines get
> ambiguous: for digits could mean a year - or a military time in a line
> not specifying a year.  Should that paragraph be corrected?

12:00am (midnight) is the same as 00:00/24:00 in military style.

Message #25 received at 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>, 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in
 european style
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2022 15:41:46 +0200

>Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de> writes:
>> did you have the chance to try if that patch (repeated below) fixes your
>> problem?
>
>This was half a year ago, but I see that Francesco wasn't in the CCs, so
>perhaps he never got the message?

I suspect so...

>Francesco, can you try Michael's patch and see whether that fixes the
>problem?

Yes.  Can you please send it to me together with my report? (I don't remember the problem any more...)

>> I'm now a bit worried about this paragraph in
>> (info "(emacs) Appointments"):
>>
>> |    You can write times in am/pm style (with ‘12:00am’ standing for
>> | midnight and ‘12:00pm’ standing for noon), or 24-hour European/military
>> | style.  You need not be consistent; your diary file can have a mixture
>> | of the two styles.  Times must be at the beginning of diary entries if
>> | they are to be recognized.
>>
>> Military style is 1200 for 12:00am, right?

Mh.  Military style is 12:00 (or 12.00) for noon.  That's for sure.

I suppose that in am/pm style we have:
00:00 am midnight this day
11:59 am one minute to noon today
00:00 pm noon
11:59 pm one minute to midnight today

This would imply what is written in the paragraph you cited above.

Message #28 received at 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>, 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in
 european style
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2022 15:45:19 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org> writes:

> Yes.  Can you please send it to me together with my report? (I don't
> remember the problem any more...)

Patch included below, and here's the original report:

Diary entries are not parsed by M-x diary if:
- calendar-date-style is set to european (rather than american)
AND
- the date is written as "3 Feb" (rather than 3/2)
AND
- the time is written as "18.00" (rather than 18:00)

At least, this is what I have found by trial and error.  I looked at the code in appt.el and diary-lib.el but was not able to find the culprit...

To reproduce:

$ emacs -Q -nw --load=appt-bug.el

You will see that only two european entries are shown (t1 and t2).

Then exit Emacs, comment out the second line in appt-bug-el and rerun Emacs as above: you will see four american entries (t1, t2, t3, t4).

================ appt-bug.el
(setq diary-file "~/appt-bug-diary"
      calendar-date-style 'european
      )
(load-library "diary-lib")
(diary-list-entries (list 2 3 (decoded-time-year (decode-time))) 1)

================ appt-bug-diary
	-*-diary-*-

3 Feb	18:00 t1 works (european)

3/2	18.00 t2 works (european)

3 Feb	18.00 t3 does not work (european)

3 Feb
	18.00 t4 does not work (european)

Feb 3	18:00 t1 works (american)

2/3	18.00 t2 works (american)

Feb 3	18.00 t3 works (american)

Feb 3
	18.00 t4 works (american)

[0001-WIP-Try-to-fix-53702.patch (text/x-diff, inline)]

From 5346b90b9884b9190cfe77310f2444ed35d182eb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2022 01:08:43 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] WIP: Try to fix #53702

---
 lisp/calendar/calendar.el | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
index 48d308afad..0605e4bf51 100644
--- a/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
+++ b/lisp/calendar/calendar.el
@@ -800,8 +800,8 @@ diary-american-date-forms
 (defcustom diary-european-date-forms
   '((day "/" month "[^/0-9]")
     (day "/" month "/" year "[^0-9]")
-    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:aApP]\\)\\)")
-    (day " *" monthname " *" year "[^0-9:aApP]")
+    (backup day " *" monthname "\\W+\\<\\([^*0-9]\\|\\([0-9]+[:.aApP]\\)\\)")
+    (day " *" monthname " *" year "[^0-9:.aApP]")
     (dayname "\\W"))
   "List of pseudo-patterns describing the European style of dates.
 The defaults are: DAY/MONTH; DAY/MONTH/YEAR; DAY MONTHNAME;
--
2.30.2

Message #31 received at 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org>, 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in
 european style
Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2022 06:13:51 +0200

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org> writes:

> This was half a year ago, but I see that Francesco wasn't in the CCs, so
> perhaps he never got the message?

I thought the reporter always gets all messages in his bug's thread
automatically?

> 12:00am (midnight) is the same as 00:00/24:00 in military style.

Then my concerns about that paragraph were ill-founded.

Ok, then let's see if Francesco is happy with the patch.

Michael.

Message #34 received at 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
Cc: Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org>, 53702 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1; diary does not display some entries in
 european style
Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2022 19:08:27 +0200

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de> writes:

>> This was half a year ago, but I see that Francesco wasn't in the CCs, so
>> perhaps he never got the message?
>
> I thought the reporter always gets all messages in his bug's thread
> automatically?

I've always assumed that they only get the messages explicitly directed
at them (as well as the response from the "-done" message).  But I don't
really know.  🫠

Message #39 received at 53702-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas <at> gmail.com>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>,
 Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
Cc: Francesco Potortì <pot <at> gnu.org>,
 53702-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#53702: 27.1;
 diary does not display some entries in european style
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2025 05:38:05 +0000

Version: 31.1

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org> writes:

> Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de> writes:
>
>> did you have the chance to try if that patch (repeated below) fixes your
>> problem?
>
> This was half a year ago, but I see that Francesco wasn't in the CCs, so
> perhaps he never got the message?
>
> Francesco, can you try Michael's patch and see whether that fixes the
> problem?
>
>> I'm now a bit worried about this paragraph in
>> (info "(emacs) Appointments"):
>>
>> |    You can write times in am/pm style (with ‘12:00am’ standing for
>> | midnight and ‘12:00pm’ standing for noon), or 24-hour European/military
>> | style.  You need not be consistent; your diary file can have a mixture
>> | of the two styles.  Times must be at the beginning of diary entries if
>> | they are to be recognized.
>>
>> Military style is 1200 for 12:00am, right?  This definitely can't be
>> used everywhere when using the European style because lines get
>> ambiguous: for digits could mean a year - or a military time in a line
>> not specifying a year.  Should that paragraph be corrected?
>
> 12:00am (midnight) is the same as 00:00/24:00 in military style.

This patch fixes the bug here, so I installed it with a fixed up commit
message (commit 8b0043ffd60).  I'm therefore closing this bug report.

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