Crystal: Time parse error in master

[kostya]

this works in 0.24.2 and not work in master:

p Time.parse("2011-08-15 12:00", "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M")

Unhandled exception: Time format did not include time zone and no default location provided (Time::Format::Error)
  from src/time/format/parser.cr:362:9 in 'raise'
  from src/time/format/parser.cr:30:9 in 'time'
  from src/time/format.cr:77:5 in 'parse'
  from src/time/format.cr:74:3 in 'parse'
  from src/time.cr:542:5 in 'parse'
  from src/time.cr:541:3 in 'parse'
  from 1.cr:3:3 in '__crystal_main'
  from src/crystal/main.cr:104:5 in 'main_user_code'
  from src/crystal/main.cr:93:7 in 'main'
  from src/crystal/main.cr:133:3 in 'main'

[kostya]

i find that now need to set location:

Time.parse("2011-08-15 12:00", "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M", Time::Location.local)

why not set it by default?

[RX14]

Because the correct default massively depends on usecase.

[w-A-L-L-e]

Well the local default seems easier and makes sense in most cases.
Also doing Time.new just gives back current local time.
Example how it is now:

puts Time.parse("2012-11-01 22:08:12", "%F %T", Time::Location.local)
puts Time.parse("Fri Oct 31 23:00:24 2014", "%c", Time::Location.local)
puts Time.parse("Fri Oct 31 23:00:24 2014", "%c", Time::Location::UTC)
puts Time.parse("20150624", "%Y%m%d", Time::Location.local)
puts Time.new

with output:

2012-11-01 22:08:12 +01:00
2014-10-31 23:00:24 +01:00
2014-10-31 23:00:24 UTC
2015-06-24 00:00:00 +02:00
2018-08-22 21:00:05 +02:00

With the default suggested the code would be (basically if the user is concerned with timezones he'll add the argument, if not the sane/default is fine, being local time):

puts Time.parse("2012-11-01 22:08:12", "%F %T")
puts Time.parse("Fri Oct 31 23:00:24 2014", "%c")
puts Time.parse("Fri Oct 31 23:00:24 2014", "%c", Time::Location::UTC)
puts Time.parse("20150624", "%Y%m%d")
puts Time.new

So for me also +1 for the defaulting to local time. If you want UTC or something else you can always give it. Also to drive it further down to having defaults. The documentation on the crystal lang site is not updated and does say you have to give a time location as being local for .parse to work:

https://crystal-lang.org/api/0.20.0/Time.html
https://crystal-lang.org/api/0.20.0/Time.html#parse%28time%3AString%2Cpattern%3AString%2Ckind%3DTime%3A%3AKind%3A%3AUnspecified%29%3Aself-class-method

Other than that, keep up the great work!
Crystal's performance is great. Been playing a few days with this language benchmarking and doing some mvc with amber and liking it a lot ;)

[Sija]

There's also Time.parse! accepting %z

[straight-shoota]

@w-A-L-L-e Seems you've been looking at outdated docs from 0.20.0 judging by the links you posted. The most recent API documentation is here: https://crystal-lang.org/api/latest/Time.html

There is now Time#parse_local which behaves like you described, see #6369 for details on this topic.

[w-A-L-L-e]

Thanks, parse_local and parse_utc work indeed for a short/concise way of creating times... great ;).