Natural language datetime parsing web API(timeapi.org)

27 pointsby progriumvor 17 Jahren21 comments

Natural language datetime parsing web API

http://www.timeapi.org/

22 comments

fizxvor 17 Jahren

Hey, you should use the date_range gem! (Shameless self-project pimping) Look at some of the things it adds to chronic:

http://github.com/fizx/date_range/blob/459812f091a67ce8d4b0e...

Edit: Oh, and you should add a batch api. Request latency will easily trump parsing time.

But yeah, keep up the good work. I need to find/create a good open web/api/scraping/big-data meetup, preferably in SF, not the valley.

byoung2vor 17 Jahren

http://www.timeapi.org/pdt/this+friday+at+lunchtime

by design?

jweckervor 17 Jahren

First thing I tried was "today"

Got back an internal server error, and then got back 1pm tomorrow (even with the correct timezone).

lucumovor 17 Jahren

As much as everyone hates PHP, this would've been some two lines in it, using strtotime()

It's really one of the best functions in the language. http://nl2.php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php

amoebavor 17 Jahren

Very cool. Noticed it doesn't always throw an error when it's sent nonsense:

http://www.timeapi.org/pdt/first+firday+this+september

Gave me the third Wednesday of this September.

tptacekvor 17 Jahren

Uh...

    %w[ rubygems sinatra chronic ].each {|x| require x}
    get "/utc/:time" do |time|; Chronic.parse(time).to_s; end

(Also, Chronic is extremely slow).

pennigvor 17 Jahren

You've pretty much got the idea.

nirvor 17 Jahren

Nothing wrong with that. Can be useful for non-Ruby apps, for example. BTW. A JSONP version could make usable from JavaScript..

tptacekvor 17 Jahren

It's already usable from JS.

    $.get("/time-thingy/utc/" + whatever, function(date) { 
        alert("your UTC timestamp is " + date);
    });

Not to be snarky, though, but this seems pretty silly. What major web framework doesn't have natural-language date parsing? There are BSD-licensed C libraries that do it. Why remote that?

nirvor 17 Jahren

I was thinking more as a web service, so JSONP is for cross site XHR.

I assume someone would not have a good NL date parser for their environment, or won't be able to run it for some reason, or would simply prefer Chronic.

A lot of stuff that seems pointless ends up being useful, and vice versa. Assuming it's on Heroku's free plan, it costs nothing to run forever, so why not? If it helps 10 people, it already beat most web pages.

fizxvor 17 Jahren

Pointers to the C libraries, please! (beyond GNU Getdate, which doesn't really do this.)

tptacekvor 17 Jahren

I went looking for the one CVS uses, found this:

http://www.datejs.com/

and stopped looking.

perezdvor 17 Jahren

you should make one based off of my plugin smartmonth!

http://github.com/perezd/smart_month/tree/master

lucifervor 17 Jahren

http://www.timeapi.org/pdt/7+hours+before+tomorrow+at+noon http://www.timeapi.org/pdt/7+hours+before+noon+tomorrow

amoebavor 17 Jahren

This is a problem with Chronic and not with the webapp. It looks like Chronic doesn't understand the distinction between midnight and noon.

*Edit: Looks like a lot more is wrong with Chronic.

http://www.timeapi.org/pdt/seven%20hours%20before%20tomorrow

joe_the_uservor 17 Jahren

The thing is that natural language processing can't be solved in pieces like this. Even a real human being doesn't understand discreet fragments of otherwise comprehensible human language. It is only by looking language as a whole that we human get the understanding, so spreading language processing out through a number of websites wouldn't work...

Plus this kind of "service" would be very fragile even the cases it would otherwise work...

catch23vor 17 Jahren

http://www.presdo.com has a much more powerful natural language time parser (that system handles all the timezones in the world) but they don't have a great api for extracting that info. It can't handle stuff like "seven hours before tomorrow" but it can do more common phrases like "tomorrow after lunch" or "day after tomorrow at 3pm"

joe_the_uservor 17 Jahren

day after tomorrow at 3pm

Lol, even I would be thrown by that phrase... (a comma might help)

It's like SQL.

The problem with SQL isn't that simple SQL phrases are that different from normal language OR that complex SQL phrases break the rules of simple SQL phrases.

The problem with SQL is that humans beings have a lot of trouble understanding complex phrases that follow the most consistent possible rules followed by simple phrases...

So clever NLP often just out-clevers itself communicating with us... (remember SQL was originally intended to be a language usable by even non-programmers and ended up being a language that even many programmers feared ... though I have an unusual fondness for it).

catch23vor 17 Jahren

Also, it handles time ranges, subject, verb, multiple time selections, and timezones of the person you're scheduling with. I've been using it for a long time already and it's pretty good at handling crazy stuff like:

"Meet with [email protected] and [email protected] next wednesday from 3pm to 9pm or first thursday of next month from 4pm to 8pm"

This creates an event that allows sam & jim to choose between these 2 dates. If presdo had an api to extract this information, I'd be on board!

JimmyLvor 17 Jahren

http://www.timeapi.org/est/92+days+from+now http://www.timeapi.org/est/3+months+from+now

While we're on the topic, anyone know of a clean Python library for converting local to UTC (that knows about DST)? For example, I'd like to specify a timezone, a local time, and a date, and get a UTC datetime.

In concrete terms, if I know that something is happening at 730pm four months from now in a city that's currently in EDT, suggestions on how to get a UTC for that?

DougBTXvor 17 Jahren

Well, I can't parse the first one, so I'm happy to let that one slip.

officiallyradvor 17 Jahren