Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 01:02:44 -0400
From: fotland@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Re: tight spec for game-info properties


I can tell that you haven't looked at many existing SGF files :)

One big issue with the current format is what to do with partial dates.
Often a file has just the year, or year and month.

I see entries like:

1994-??-??
1994
1994-05
Late 19th century  (well OK, I made this one up)
18-12-1990
1995-04-1
July, 1991
17th of December 1992
94.6.22
Sep 20 1991
July 29 1989
8 sept 1990
3rd Korean World Title.\\\\
1820-04-10,30,05-14,15
5-6 Juli 1963
3rd & 25th October, 1853
etc.

Maybe 5 or 10 percent of my sgf files have the date in ISO format.

It's hopeless to try to parse this much variety and convert to ISO.

And many of these dates cannot be represented at all with the current FF[4]
ISO date format.

This is the information I put in the text date field.  If I can 
parse the date, I put it in separate month/day/year fields.  If
I can't, I put it in the text field.  When there is no date, the
user can enter either mm/dd/yyyy or arbitrary text.

Since Many Faces of GO is aimed at the US market, I don't plan to
make the date diplay configurable for different countries.  If
someone does a conversion for Europe later, they can add it
then if needed.

-David