Core Java libraries (part of Android SDK) include sophisticated capabilities to parse, convert and format dates, including diffs and getting hte day of the week, etc...
http://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/Calendar.htmlSo, I don't believe it is necessary for us to 'hand-parse' dates using regular expressions in this case (except for 'Ides of March" , etc :-)
Bea Jim Cant wrote:
This would be a good way to be able to generate Java Date objects which might be useful if we wanted to determine day of week to calculate the difference between two dates. but then .... what if BEL is presenting their dates in a way that won't parse but would still be human readable? (Probably unlikely). That would argue for just treating them as Strings. After all, "The Fourth of July" and "The ides of March" are meaningful dates. ;-) Interesting design question. jimFrom: Rob <mailto:robertdionne@xxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:49 PM To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android" Regular Expression LibraryRegarding regular expressions --- extracting time and date information, markup code.There are single regular expression statements that can identify numerous time and date formats at the following site: http://regexlib.com/DisplayPatterns.aspxThere is a separate section on this site dedicated to markup code.I was thinking that regular expressions may be helpful in identifying dates and times that occur within the description portion of the events. RegEx-identified times could be confirmed by the user as being a start or end time, etc., and then extracted programmtically to be entered into the local BEL calendar. The goal of the regEx would be to identify any reasonably formatted time and date and to convert it to match "calendar" interface methods. I see it working much like a spell checker, scanning text and prompting the user when it finds mathches. I don't see this as a clean way to obtain event details, but also don't see another approach at the moment.Rob------------------------------------------------------------------------From: tssg-tech-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tssg-tech-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Beatrice W. ChaneySent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:10 PM To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android"A few explanations:1. The http://validator.w3.org/ site is owned by the W3C standards organization (World Wide Web Consortium), which manages the HTML and XML industry standards, as a service to web developers. To validate a site just click the above link and enter the URL of the site you would like to validate, in this case http://www.bostoneventslist.com/ and click on 'Check'. It comes up with 70 errors. To see what those errors mean, go to http://www.bostoneventslist.com/ and choose the menu View -> Page Source. This displays the actual HTML generated by the site and you can see the errors (validator gives line numbers) Most of the validation complaints are non-conformant XHTML syntax (its header specifies 'strict') but some are mis-matched end tags such as end tags </script> found without a preceding <script> tag, etc...2. Unfortunately, the fact that the RSS validates (it does) does not mean that the content validates, as the RSS format just wraps the content with all the < and >, etc.. converted to < and > (the control characters are 'escaped') precisely to avoid being thrown off if the content is invalid. RSS feeds must validate. To get the XML format of the content fragments, we first have to run them through a 'regular expression' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression) that replaces the <, >, etc... with < and > , ... again, and then try to parse these fragments as XML.3. To view the RSS XML, just enter the URL: http://www.bostoneventslist.com/rss.xml in your browser.4. The fact that the http://www.bostoneventslist.com/ does not validate is not a direct cause of a potential issue with the content items format, as it appears content items are generated dynamically (do not show up in the source). So, we still need to determine whether the unescaped content items are well-formed, and if not 'tweak' them to be well-formed. While RSS is guaranteed to validate, I don't believe we can rely on content (that is, the <description></description> elements) being well-formed.TODO: write or find an 'unescape' regular expression. Bea Jim Cant wrote: Hey, good news! How did you validate it? jim ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:11:08 -0700 From: jcarwellos@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:jcarwellos@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android" To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> BTW, the RSS validated with no errors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Julie (Dingee) Carwellos Web and IT Project Analyst, User Experience and Interaction DesignerLinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/in/jdingeecarwellos> - http://www.linkedin.com/in/jdingeecarwellos--- On Tue, 9/28/10, Julie Carwellos <jcarwellos@xxxxxxxxx> <mailto:jcarwellos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:From: Julie Carwellos <jcarwellos@xxxxxxxxx> <mailto:jcarwellos@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android" To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 6:06 PM Bea,It isn't; I get a consistent 11 errors for each single-event web page (using FireBug to validate HTML).Additionally, each event page is styled with TABLEs, rather than floating DIVs, so we can't use a handheld.css style sheet to load the URL into a WebView and have only the event information display (using display:none; for the outer columns).-julie ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Julie (Dingee) Carwellos Web and IT Project Analyst, User Experience and Interaction DesignerLinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/in/jdingeecarwellos> - http://www.linkedin.com/in/jdingeecarwellos--- On Tue, 9/28/10, Beatrice W. Chaney <bwchaney@xxxxxxxx> <mailto:bwchaney@xxxxxxxx> wrote:From: Beatrice W. Chaney <bwchaney@xxxxxxxx> <mailto:bwchaney@xxxxxxxx> Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android" To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 4:18 PM Hi,I suspect (but haven't verified it) that the BostonEventList data might possibly not be well-formed. I ran the site through the W3 validator http://validator.w3.org/ some time ago (and again now), and it comes up with a number of errors. Having a site be valid XHTML is a critical prerquisite to getting on top of Google's list.If this is the case (first, need to verify that well-formedness is really the problem) there are tidy-up utilities available, but we'd have to see whether they are suitable for Android.Thanks, Bea Harry Henriques wrote: Hello,I think Bea referenced the IBM website regarding RSS parser alternatives. I downloaded the application from the website, and massaged the files. I was able to get the application to successfully create an apk and load successfully into the Android Emulator. The application is partially working, but I could use some help debugging it. The application doesn't parse the BostonEventsList. For some reason, it stops before displaying a ListView.I delivered the work I have finished to the SVN Repository in a Android project called MessageList.I will continue to work on it as time permits. I've only just begun to fight.Regards, Harry Henriques Java Developer =
