bug#30102: date -d 'next tuesday, 2 years ago' # Is something like that supported?

[bug-coreutils]

Hi Assaf:

On Sun 1/14/18 3:50 -0700 Assaf Gordon wrote:
> On 2018-01-13 05:03 PM, address@hidden wrote:
> In version 8.27 the date command has an additional option called 
> "--debug" which can help in understanding the date parsing.

Thanks/good to know.

> I will use it in the output below.
> 
> > $ info date -n 'Date input formats' |grep 'next tue'
> > * Relative items in date strings:: next tuesday, 2 years ago.
> 
> Date does accept "2 years ago next Tuesday".
> However, it first calculates "next Tuesday" (which as of this writing is 
> 2018-Jan-16), and then subtracts two years, giving "Sat, Jan 16th, 
> 2016". Not sure if that is what you wanted.
> 
> ===
> $ date --debug -d 'next tuesday 2 years ago'
> date: parsed day part: next/first Tue (day ordinal=1 number=2)
> date: parsed relative part: -2 year(s)
> date: input timezone: system default
> date: warning: using midnight as starting time: 00:00:00
> date: new start date: 'next/first Tue' is '(Y-M-D) 2018-01-16 00:00:00'
> date: starting date/time: '(Y-M-D) 2018-01-16 00:00:00'
> date: warning: when adding relative months/years, it is recommended to 
> specify the 15th of the months
> date: after date adjustment (-2 years, +0 months, +0 days),
> date:     new date/time = '(Y-M-D) 2016-01-16 00:00:00'
> date: '(Y-M-D) 2016-01-16 00:00:00' = 1452927600 epoch-seconds
> date: timezone: system default
> date: final: 1452927600.000000000 (epoch-seconds)
> date: final: (Y-M-D) 2016-01-16 07:00:00 (UTC)
> date: final: (Y-M-D) 2016-01-16 00:00:00 (UTC-07)
> Sat Jan 16 00:00:00 MST 2016
> ===
> 
> > My goal is to find for example the date of the first Saturday after 1/7/2018
> > with a single date command.
> 
> Of the top of my head I can't think of a single command that would work,
> because 'date' ignores "next tuesday" when given an explicit date, as 
> shown below (notice the warning):

OK, thanks for carefully reading my goal!

> ===
> date --debug -d "2018-01-07 next tuesday"
> date: parsed date part: (Y-M-D) 2018-01-07
> date: parsed day part: next/first Tue (day ordinal=1 number=2)
> date: input timezone: system default
> date: warning: using midnight as starting time: 00:00:00
> date: warning: day (next/first Tue) ignored when explicit dates are given
> date: starting date/time: '(Y-M-D) 2018-01-07 00:00:00'
> date: '(Y-M-D) 2018-01-07 00:00:00' = 1515308400 epoch-seconds
> date: timezone: system default
> date: final: 1515308400.000000000 (epoch-seconds)
> date: final: (Y-M-D) 2018-01-07 07:00:00 (UTC)
> date: final: (Y-M-D) 2018-01-07 00:00:00 (UTC-07)
> Sun Jan  7 00:00:00 MST 2018
> ===
> 
> However, it can be done with two commands:
> first, find the day-of-week (DOW) of the desired date (2018-Jan-7 is 
> Sunday). I will use the "%w" format (see 'date --help'):
>       %w   day of week (0..6); 0 is Sunday
> Then, calculate how many days we need to add to get to saturday (6 
> days), and show the date of '2018-Jan-7 + 6 days':
> 
> ===
> $ FROM="2018-01-07"
> $ DOW=$(date -d "$FROM" +%w)
> $ ADDDAYS=$((6-DOW))
> $ date -d "$FROM + $ADDDAYS days"
> Sat Jan 13 00:00:00 MST 2018
> ===

Thanks, above is the general approach I plan to use; I'm pretty clear about 
soln.  I plan to make
a bash function that will give for example: date of 2nd Sat, 3rd Wed or 1st Tue 
for a given month --
useful for reoccurring meetings.

> Lastly,
> You wrote "after 1/7/2018" so I assume you wanted a specific date.
> But if you just want "next saturday" from today (or from last week), 
> then date 'just works':
> 
> ===
> $ date
> Sun Jan 14 03:48:03 MST 2018
> 
> $ date -d 'next saturday'
> Sat Jan 20 00:00:00 MST 2018
> 
> $ date -d 'last week next saturday'
> Sat Jan 13 00:00:00 MST 2018
> ===
> 
> 
> I'm marking this as "not a bug" and closing it because it is a question 
> and not a bug - but general discussion is very welcomed to continue,
> simply by replying to this thread.

Makes sense.

--
If we could convince 'GNU date' that the system date
was any specified value, then my issue would be solved.  Is there a way
to do this, w/o changing the host's clock?

--
regards,
Tom
Milwaukee WI