scrapinghub / scrapinghub/dateparser

Intermittent fault when finding dates.

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search_dates Type: Bug
Dominant language
Python
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Description

A bit of an edge case but something I don't understand, when I attempt to parse using the command dateparser.search.search_dates on the text:-

the dates 3pm on 5/6/2007 and 11/12/2015.

I get the datetimes:-

('3pm', datetime.datetime(2018, 7, 11, 15, 0))
('5/6/2007', datetime.datetime(2007, 6, 5, 0, 0))
('11/12/2015', datetime.datetime(2015, 12, 11, 0, 0))

but when I attempt to parse:-

the dates 3pm on 5/6/2007 and 11/12/2015. This is an example from last Tuesday, Can it extract dates like 1-1-1994 and can it understand text like the 3rd of august 2043?

I only get the dates

('tuesday', datetime.datetime(2018, 7, 10, 0, 0))
('1-1-1994', datetime.datetime(1994, 1, 1, 0, 0))
('the 3rd of august 2043', datetime.datetime(2043, 8, 3, 0, 0))

The same as if I were to attempt to parse:-

This is an example from last Tuesday, Can it extract dates like 1-1-1994 and can it understand text like the 3rd of august 2043?

Can anyone think of a reason this may be happening, have I done something wrong? The command dateparser.parse(text) returns a None

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
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Research direction

Reproduce the two examples through dateparser.search.search_dates and compare them with dateparser.parse, focusing on why the presence of earlier time and date expressions changes the extracted results. Trace the parsing behavior from those entry points and define done as consistent extraction of the dates shown in the report, with regression coverage for both inputs.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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