facebook / facebook/duckling

Wrong interpretations of sentences with word "now"

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Haskell
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Description

Hi,

For below sentences where word "now" is replaced with some other word duckling can handle a sentence as a whole and interpretation is correct. But "now" is special.... and duckling cannot handle sentence as a whole.

"**Three days from today at 6pm**" -> {vValue = **2013-02-15 18:00:00 -0200**, vGrain = Hour}

Debug view:

```
*Duckling.Debug> debug (makeLocale EN $ Just US) "Three days from today at 6pm" [This Time]
after|before|from|past

"**Three days from now at 6pm**" -> {vValue = **2013-02-15 04:00:00 -0200**, vGrain = Hour}

```
after|before|from|past

"**Four days from Wednesday at 16:00**" -> {vValue = **2013-02-17 16:00:00 -0200**, vGrain = Minute}

```
intersect (Four days from Wednesday at 16:00)
-- after|before|from|past

"**Four days from now at 16:00**" -> {vValue = **2013-02-16 04:00:00 -0200**, vGrain = Hour}

```
after|before|from|past

"**in two days from yesterday after 20:00**" -> {vValue = **2013-02-13 20:00:00 -0200**, vGrain = Minute}

```
in|within|after (in two days)
-- regex (in)
-- (two days)
-- -- integer (0..19) (two)
-- -- -- regex (two)
-- -- day (grain) (days)
-- -- -- regex (days)
intersect (two days from yesterday after 20:00)
-- after|before|from|past

```

"**in two days from now after 20:00**" -> {vValue = **2013-02-14 04:00:00 -0200**, vGrain = Hour}

```
*Duckling.Debug> debug (makeLocale EN $ Just US) "in two days from now after 20:00" [This Time]
in|within|after (in two days)
-- regex (in)
-- (two days)
-- -- integer (0..19) (two)
-- -- -- regex (two)
-- -- day (grain) (days)
-- -- -- regex (days)
after|before|from|past

From my poor understanding of a code this is because "now" has TG.Seconds and durations are represented in Days. In result existing rules cannot properly interpret "now" as their time shift reference.

https://github.com/facebook/duckling/blob/0ebaf378dc3dd93a57a567298eea9fb73a7d0e7c/Duckling/Time/EN/Rules.hs#L130-L145

https://github.com/facebook/duckling/blob/0ebaf378dc3dd93a57a567298eea9fb73a7d0e7c/Duckling/Time/EN/Rules.hs#L2322-L2340

I've tried to create a rule which will try to convert type of "now" from TG.Second to TG.Days but failed miserably (compilations errors, wrong type, wrong result time). Could you provide me some help from more advanced Haskell programmer how should I handle this special case?

Thank you in advance

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reproducing the listed cases with Duckling.Debug, then read Duckling/Time/EN/Rules.hs around lines 130-145 and 2322-2340. Trace how “now” combines with duration and time-of-day expressions; done means the reported sentences are parsed as whole expressions with the expected timestamps and grains.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
haskell
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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