What

Natty is a natural language date parser written in Java. Given a date expression, natty will apply standard language recognition and translation techniques to produce a list of corresponding dates with optional parse and syntax information.

History

Originally written by Joel Stelmach at https://github.com/joestelmach/natty and developed between 2010 and 2017. Abandoned since then.

Usage

Maven:

<dependency>
  <groupId>io.github.natty-parser</groupId>
  <artifactId>natty</artifactId>
  <version>1.0.1</version>
</dependency>

or consult maven.org for other build systems.

Idea behind the fork

Started with a thread in the original project. The aim is to try providing maintenance for the library.

Plan / Priorities (as of November 2022):

1. Release version 1.0.0 with (possibly) the same code as the fork root, but under new name, consider renaming packages and artifacts to use natty-parser as the moniker, etc. DONE
2. Fix the tests (some are failing?). DONE
3. Set up basic technicalities of the fork - Maven release process, CI (Continuous Integration), etc. DONE
4. Start accepting contributions (PRs), encourage the community to solve issues reported in the original repo
5. Consider switching to Gradle (as this is a build tool which is modern and I am familiar with)
6. Decide on the overall vision of the project - at this point it's hard to tell, but I think a conscious decision on what is gonna be supported would be great - i.e. focus on i18n, customization, stability, or what?

Known issues from the parent project

See issues

Commitment

I hope for open collaboration and contributions from others. To me it's totally a side-project, not the core activity. Yet, I can commit to being (fairly) responsive and inclusive.

Contibutions

Are more then welcome. Feel free to reach out (e.g. by creating an issue in this repo) to offer your support and ideas. I am happy to include more maintainers. Tag @mccartney if no response for 2-3 days (I might have missed that).

I see this project potentially being welcoming to many, incl. quite junior and inexperienced developers, who would like to learn and contribute.