IRC log of csvw on 2014-11-19

Timestamps are in UTC.

14:53:01 [RRSAgent]

RRSAgent has joined #csvw

14:53:01 [RRSAgent]

logging to http://www.w3.org/2014/11/19-csvw-irc

14:53:03 [trackbot]

RRSAgent, make logs public

14:53:03 [Zakim]

Zakim has joined #csvw

14:53:05 [trackbot]

Zakim, this will be CSVW

14:53:05 [Zakim]

ok, trackbot; I see DATA_CSVWG()10:00AM scheduled to start in 7 minutes

14:53:06 [trackbot]

Meeting: CSV on the Web Working Group Teleconference

14:53:06 [trackbot]

Date: 19 November 2014

14:59:20 [danbri]

hi folks

15:00:06 [danbri]

ok per http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-csv-wg/2014Nov/0044.html my proposal is that we do not meet formally this week, but if anyone wants to follow Jeremy's suggestion to talk about dates/functions/operators, we can chat via Zakim.

15:00:10 [danbri]

regrets from Jeni

15:00:11 [ivan]

Hi danbri, I come in a minute

15:01:03 [danbri]

likewise

15:01:06 [danbri]

too many tabs open!

15:01:48 [jtandy]

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15:02:27 [Zakim]

DATA_CSVWG()10:00AM has now started

15:02:35 [ivan]

zakim, dial ivan-voip

15:02:35 [Zakim]

+ +44.207.346.aaaa

15:02:35 [Zakim]

ok, ivan; the call is being made

15:02:37 [Zakim]

+Ivan

15:02:42 [danbri]

zakim, aaaa is danbri

15:02:42 [Zakim]

+danbri; got it

15:02:47 [jtandy]

#2789

15:03:07 [Zakim]

+??P6

15:03:18 [jtandy]

zakim, ??p6 is me

15:03:18 [Zakim]

+jtandy; got it

15:03:28 [danbri]

zakim, who is on the phone?

15:03:28 [Zakim]

On the phone I see danbri, Ivan, jtandy

15:03:35 [jtandy]

sorry - fire alarm test

15:05:56 [danbri]

talking dates, informally

15:06:02 [danbri]

[agreed not a full WG meeting]

15:06:30 [danbri]

https://github.com/w3c/csvw/issues/54

15:06:46 [danbri]

jtandy: last week I said I'd look at ISO8601

15:06:50 [danbri]

it doesn't allow for pattern strings

15:06:57 [danbri]

gives a number of ways people can provide data

15:07:01 [danbri]

quite restricted

15:07:05 [danbri]

only uses gregorian calendar

15:07:12 [danbri]

wasn't quite what i expected of it

15:07:27 [danbri]

ivan: 8601 … some b/g ?

15:07:48 [danbri]

ivan: ah, … the one always cited.

15:08:19 [danbri]

jtandy: it doesn't allow you to say that I'll give month first then years then days (per US convention), or whatever pattern

15:08:25 [danbri]

… so this doesn't work for us

15:08:34 [danbri]

ivan: at least for RDF this is what we're supposed to use at output

15:08:52 [danbri]

jtandy: for RDF and for XML and a number of other places, 8601 is what is used

15:09:04 [danbri]

… however CSV is not so restricted so wild CSV has other date formats

15:09:26 [danbri]

…therefore for mapping we need to consume a natural date format and then publish it as ISO8601, xsd:dateTime etc

15:09:40 [danbri]

… I think from F2F the I18N guys said take a look at TR35

15:09:47 [danbri]

ivan: which is quite terrifying :)

15:09:52 [gkellogg]

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15:09:57 [jtandy]

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions-30/#formatting-dates-and-times

15:09:59 [danbri]

jtandy: I've also looked at xpath, xquery functions

15:10:02 [danbri]

rrsagent, pointer?

15:10:02 [RRSAgent]

See http://www.w3.org/2014/11/19-csvw-irc#T15-10-02

15:10:05 [danbri]

<- for gregg

15:10:31 [danbri]

… what happens there (url above) is that they provide a v good spec on how to turn ISO8601 internal date format into a natural date string

15:10:38 [danbri]

… but it is really very clear about how to do so

15:10:46 [danbri]

… even though it goes in the opposite direction to what we do

15:11:20 [danbri]

jtandy: specifically in http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions-30/#formatting-dates-and-times section 9

15:11:21 [jtandy]

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions-30/#dates-times

15:11:35 [danbri]

thanks

15:11:42 [danbri]

jtandy: if you go to 9.2.1 you see some examples

15:12:13 [jtandy]

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions-30/#formatting-dates-and-times

15:12:27 [jtandy]

section 9.8

15:12:31 [danbri]

9.8 Formatting dates and times

15:13:19 [danbri]

danbri: i assume function can't be reversed as ambiguous (e.g. US mon/day day/mon order)

15:13:29 [danbri]

jtandy: see Picture String section

15:13:40 [danbri]

9.8.4.1 The picture string

15:13:51 [danbri]

ivan: various of these are implemented across multiple languages

15:14:09 [danbri]

…however they don't define how to use such picture string

15:14:57 [danbri]

jtandy: various discussion on correct picture string representation

15:15:01 [danbri]

ivan: see 9.8.5 section

15:15:21 [danbri]

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions-30/#date-time-examples

15:15:28 [danbri]

jtandy: examples of output

15:16:18 [danbri]

danbri: reminiscent of URI Templates

15:16:33 [danbri]

format-time($t, "[h]:[m01]:[s01] o'clock [PN] [ZN,*-3]", "en", (), ())

15:16:33 [danbri]

15:16:33 [danbri]

gives

15:16:33 [danbri]

15:16:33 [danbri]

3:58:45 o'clock PM PDT

15:17:08 [danbri]

jtandy: if we said "a CSV impl must support gregorian calendar, and it may support other calendars… conversion functionality is impl dependent"

15:17:29 [ivan]

https://docs.python.org/2/library/datetime.html#strftime-and-strptime-behavior

15:17:34 [danbri]

ivan: re issues for implementors

15:17:41 [danbri]

… this {url} is py version of the same thing

15:17:55 [danbri]

… much is similar, although they use a % sign instead of [ ]

15:18:04 [danbri]

… and then another one, ...

15:18:10 [danbri]

jtandy: yes, Moment JS lib

15:18:17 [danbri]

ivan: similar but not identical.

15:18:27 [danbri]

jtandy: and then java simple data format

15:18:31 [danbri]

… lots of places in same space

15:18:54 [danbri]

… if an impl was using e.g. py impl, they'd need to map from our picture string

15:18:58 [danbri]

… which is at least similar

15:19:05 [danbri]

… i.e. not having to do the entire job

15:19:14 [danbri]

… over time people might standardize on one picture string syntax

15:19:18 [danbri]

ivan: it's pretty much of a mess

15:19:27 [danbri]

jtandy: the general situation or this? :)

15:19:34 [danbri]

ivan: … both? :)

15:20:15 [danbri]

… if I look at the python one, and Moment likely is similar, they have diff chars for diff things, e.g. capital Y, … whereas if my u/standing correct, xpath they define microsyntaxes

15:20:27 [danbri]

… which is the worst to convert from this to the py one is a pita

15:21:06 [jtandy]

http://momentjs.com/docs/

15:21:43 [danbri]

danbri: which dir do these tools go in?

15:21:46 [danbri]

ivan: both

15:22:22 [danbri]

ivan: am tempted to ignore the xsd stuff

15:22:30 [danbri]

… and pick one of the existing formats and use that

15:22:44 [danbri]

… which is probably simpler, we'd make at least some implementors happier

15:22:54 [jtandy]

Year, month, and day tokens

15:22:59 [danbri]

jtandy: for example, on Moment docs, in section Year Month Day tokens

15:23:04 [danbri]

… lists the types of tokens that you can use

15:23:42 [danbri]

…. we should look across these for consistency?

15:23:51 [danbri]

ivan: there is no consistency in sense that we know they use diff picture strings

15:23:57 [jtandy]

consistency in picture string format?

15:24:53 [danbri]

ivan: considering js ruby java c, …. is there one format that dominates? that we can therefore declare a loser/winner

15:26:00 [danbri]

jtandy: is there one pic string format that is more standardized than others?

15:26:16 [danbri]

my concern is that using these language impl picture strings, … that none of them have been defined to the same rigour as xpath/xquery

15:27:03 [danbri]

jtandy: the w3c stuff more likely to address edge cases, i18n etc

15:27:55 [danbri]

ivan: we can say our default requirement is to use the iso spec etc

15:28:01 [danbri]

… however we can choose to allow picture strings

15:28:05 [danbri]

… as they are popular

15:28:12 [danbri]

… we can say they assume at least gregorian

15:28:22 [danbri]

… but we do not think of trying to address all use cases

15:28:57 [danbri]

[missing details]

15:29:36 [danbri]

jtandy: i'd advise not to use ordinal values / nominal names

15:29:47 [danbri]

ivan: we define the weekdays as numbers

15:29:48 [jtandy]

(another dateformat implementation: https://code.google.com/p/jaxson/source/browse/trunk/jaxson/WebRoot/jsSrc/org/jaxson/util/SimpleDateFormat.js?r=41)

15:29:49 [danbri]

… months as numbers

15:29:53 [danbri]

… years as numbers

15:29:56 [danbri]

the seconds etc

15:29:59 [danbri]

… only numeric

15:30:06 [danbri]

… and UTC offset etc

15:30:11 [danbri]

… that certainly helps

15:30:37 [danbri]

… considering our Use Cases, how does this map against the practicalities?

15:30:53 [danbri]

jtandy: UCs don't talk about using other calendars; generally assume gregorian / CE

15:31:07 [danbri]

… do particular CSV files use american date formats?

15:31:20 [danbri]

ivan: if this is just a matter of order, … do they handle that? do they use names of the months?

15:31:37 [danbri]

CSV report: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-csv-wg/2014Nov/0043.html

15:31:46 [danbri]

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-csv-wg/2014Nov/att-0043/csv_profiler_report_copy.pdf

15:32:55 [danbri]

jtandy: weather date formats can be odd

15:33:02 [danbri]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardate

15:33:27 [danbri]

"The first two digits of the stardate are always "41." The 4 stands for 24th century, the 1 indicates first http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_program#Seasons.2Fseries."

15:33:39 [danbri]

q+

15:33:44 [danbri]

q-

15:34:54 [danbri]

jtandy: [missed something that sounded important]

15:35:09 [danbri]

ivan:e.g. say implementations are required to do that

15:35:55 [jtandy]

i said: picture strings + gregorian calendar + Common Era ... named values (days, months etc.) are not permitted

15:36:59 [ivan]

I said: picture strings + gregorian calendar + common era, using only numbers is required, addtional features (named values) are optional to the implementation

15:37:12 [danbri]

dan: how much could be done with regex?

15:38:45 [jtandy]

agree with ivan

15:39:11 [jtandy]

question becomes "what picture string 'standard' shall we use"

15:39:21 [danbri]

would it be lossy, e.g. '01' and '1' representing January turn into '1'?

15:39:54 [jtandy]

(@danbri - the XPath spec deals with lossy transforms like you suggest)

15:40:22 [danbri]

ivan: if we decide to go with something in the js direction, is Moment somehow the main tool?

15:40:39 [danbri]

see also https://github.com/trending?l=javascript

15:41:02 [danbri]

ivan: the python one is the closest to standard in its own way

15:41:08 [danbri]

or java

15:42:04 [danbri]

danbri: don't forget .Net! they did a ton of work mapping across langs

15:42:13 [danbri]

ivan: Dart, Go, …

15:42:18 [danbri]

… we're doomed? :)

15:42:29 [danbri]

jtandy: action then is to review the common langs looking for similarities

15:42:59 [danbri]

… we'd need to specify simplifying restrictions if we wanted to include something

15:43:05 [danbri]

ivan: also problems with numbers

15:43:22 [jtandy]

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions-30/#formatting-numbers

15:45:05 [danbri]

——

15:45:50 [danbri]

ivan: can we be v loose and say that … we do not require anything in the specification sense. What we could do is something like … first we use the ISO date spec, …

15:46:07 [danbri]

… we use that, we already have issue of putting picture/format string into metadata somewhere

15:46:16 [danbri]

… we let impl decide which one they understand

15:46:29 [danbri]

… the way the metadata is defined they can give an array of a picture string for a column

15:46:39 [danbri]

… and the impl can choose which

15:47:02 [danbri]

… hope that at least one is understood

15:47:10 [danbri]

danbri: should we come up with short name codes for each pic string language

15:47:19 [danbri]

ivan: yeah

15:47:28 [danbri]

jtandy: can you see any metadata publishers bothering with that?

15:48:20 [danbri]

ivan: decent people will use the iso format

15:49:17 [Zakim]

-danbri

15:49:29 [danbri]

er

15:49:31 [danbri]

i'll redial

15:49:36 [jtandy]

where are you?

15:49:42 [jtandy]

lost in space

15:50:30 [Zakim]

+danbri

15:52:40 [jtandy]

danbri: proposes that "we strongly recommend for interoperability that you supplement your data with ISO 8601 datetime values"

15:53:06 [jtandy]

... when publishing CSV data on the web for general consumption

15:54:24 [jtandy]

(so if it's not in ISO 8601 format, then we just treat it as a string for down stream resolution?)

15:55:43 [danbri]

rrsagent, pointer?

15:55:43 [RRSAgent]

See http://www.w3.org/2014/11/19-csvw-irc#T15-55-43

15:56:57 [jtandy]

ivan: if it's not in ISO 8601 format, we don't check - so it will be an error in the RDF

15:57:36 [jtandy]

we discussed using a hash-table of common picture string formats for javascript, ruby, python etc.

15:57:57 [Zakim]

-danbri

15:57:59 [Zakim]

-jtandy

15:58:39 [Zakim]

-Ivan

15:58:41 [Zakim]

DATA_CSVWG()10:00AM has ended

15:58:41 [Zakim]

Attendees were +44.207.346.aaaa, Ivan, danbri, jtandy

15:59:33 [ivan]

rrsagent, draft minutes

15:59:33 [RRSAgent]

I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2014/11/19-csvw-minutes.html ivan

15:59:42 [ivan]

trackbot, end telcon

15:59:42 [trackbot]

Zakim, list attendees

15:59:42 [Zakim]

sorry, trackbot, I don't know what conference this is

15:59:50 [trackbot]

RRSAgent, please draft minutes

15:59:50 [RRSAgent]

I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2014/11/19-csvw-minutes.html trackbot

15:59:51 [trackbot]

RRSAgent, bye

15:59:51 [RRSAgent]

I see no action items