Subject: Re: bug#53033: date has multiple "first saturday"s?

From: Bob Proulx <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 13:22:04 -0700

Darryl Okahata via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote:
> From coreutils 9.0 (note the difference between the "second" and "third"
> saturdays):
...
> $ src/date --debug -d "second saturday"
> date: parsed relative part: +1 seconds

Caution!  The date utility can't parse second due to second being a
unit of time.  The documentation says:

       A few ordinal numbers may be written out in words in some contexts.
    This is most useful for specifying day of the week items or relative
    items (see below).  Among the most commonly used ordinal numbers, the
    word ‘last’ stands for -1, ‘this’ stands for 0, and ‘first’ and ‘next’
    both stand for 1.  Because the word ‘second’ stands for the unit of time
    there is no way to write the ordinal number 2, but for convenience
    ‘third’ stands for 3, ‘fourth’ for 4, ‘fifth’ for 5, ‘sixth’ for 6,
    ‘seventh’ for 7, ‘eighth’ for 8, ‘ninth’ for 9, ‘tenth’ for 10,
    ‘eleventh’ for 11 and ‘twelfth’ for 12.

Inconsistencies like this are why I wish it had never been
implemented.  Best to avoid the syntax completely.

Bob