Thread: 'Universal' schedule table defintion

'Universal' schedule table defintion

From
Dennis Gearon
Date:
Anyone ever seen a table definition for schedules that could handle the following:

'Every 3rd Thurday, except for national holidays'
'from 8 AM to 10PM, closed 12-1pm and 6-7pm'
'The period of time Thursday the Xth, xxxx to Sunday the Yth, xxxx,
   11am to 8pm Thursday and Friday, 8am to 6pm Saturday and Sunday'
'Monday thru Friday 10-3pm' (my kind of hours!)

Obviously, I can do this with the strings above, but there is now way that the database could
search for occurences of those using the strings, unless I come up with a special 'schedule
language' and write a function to use in the select statement, (which I may have to do anyway).



Re: 'Universal' schedule table defintion

From
Lincoln Yeoh
Date:
I'd figure a look at some of those open source calendar/schedule/reminder
programs might be helpful. You could try using yahoo calendars for some
insight.

You should be able to describe the repeating and nonrepeating stuff -
monthly, weekly, every X day, every X etc.

But I have no idea how one would do stuff like new moon sightings
(start/end of Muslim fasts - national holidays in some places) though,
especially when it could depend on local atmospheric conditions where the
official sighting is done.

So I figure you'd always need a text field for notes e.g. "subject to change".

Universal looks difficult to me.

Link.

At 03:08 PM 2/13/03 -0800, Dennis Gearon wrote:

>Anyone ever seen a table definition for schedules that could handle the
>following:
>
>'Every 3rd Thurday, except for national holidays'
>'from 8 AM to 10PM, closed 12-1pm and 6-7pm'
>'The period of time Thursday the Xth, xxxx to Sunday the Yth, xxxx,
>    11am to 8pm Thursday and Friday, 8am to 6pm Saturday and Sunday'
>'Monday thru Friday 10-3pm' (my kind of hours!)
>
>Obviously, I can do this with the strings above, but there is now way that
>the database could
>search for occurences of those using the strings, unless I come up with a
>special 'schedule
>language' and write a function to use in the select statement, (which I
>may have to do anyway).
>
>
>
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Re: 'Universal' schedule table defintion

From
Richard Huxton
Date:
On Thursday 13 Feb 2003 11:08 pm, Dennis Gearon wrote:
> Anyone ever seen a table definition for schedules that could handle the
> following:
>
> 'Every 3rd Thurday, except for national holidays'
> 'from 8 AM to 10PM, closed 12-1pm and 6-7pm'
> 'The period of time Thursday the Xth, xxxx to Sunday the Yth, xxxx,
>    11am to 8pm Thursday and Friday, 8am to 6pm Saturday and Sunday'
> 'Monday thru Friday 10-3pm' (my kind of hours!)
>
> Obviously, I can do this with the strings above, but there is now way that
> the database could search for occurences of those using the strings, unless
> I come up with a special 'schedule language' and write a function to use in
> the select statement, (which I may have to do anyway).

Two suggestions:

1. Explore "man crontab" for possibilities. If nothing else you'll be able to
explain it in the technical docs by saying "it's like crontab"

2. Even with (1) you're looking at sets of rows to represent some of the
above, I'd have a column with values of ADD|SUBTRACT to overlay rows and
produce the final pattern.

Best of luck, and I'd be interested in how well your choice works out for you.
--
  Richard Huxton

Re: 'Universal' schedule table defintion

From
"Kaare Rasmussen"
Date:
> I'd figure a look at some of those open source calendar/schedule/reminder
> programs might be helpful. You could try using yahoo calendars for some
> insight.

This could be an interesting project.

> But I have no idea how one would do stuff like new moon sightings

I guess that this can only be handled by a holiday table to be joined
against.

 --
Kaare Rasmussen            --Linux, spil,--        Tlf:        3816 2582
Kaki Data                tshirts, merchandize      Fax:        3816 2501
Howitzvej 75               Åben 12.00-18.00        Web:      www.suse.dk
2000 Frederiksberg        Lørdag 12.00-16.00       Email:kar@kakidata.dk

Re: 'Universal' schedule table defintion

From
Dennis Gearon
Date:
That's how I will do the holidays. And I'll probably have a 'type' indicator for the holiday, for
example:

'US Official', 'Muslim', blah blah.

2/14/2003 2:52:52 AM, "Kaare Rasmussen" <kar@kakidata.dk> wrote:

>> I'd figure a look at some of those open source calendar/schedule/reminder
>> programs might be helpful. You could try using yahoo calendars for some
>> insight.
>
>This could be an interesting project.
>
>> But I have no idea how one would do stuff like new moon sightings
>
>I guess that this can only be handled by a holiday table to be joined
>against.
>
> --
>Kaare Rasmussen            --Linux, spil,--        Tlf:        3816 2582
>Kaki Data                tshirts, merchandize      Fax:        3816 2501
>Howitzvej 75               Åben 12.00-18.00        Web:      www.suse.dk
>2000 Frederiksberg        Lørdag 12.00-16.00       Email:kar@kakidata.dk
>