Can days of week in a query remain constant during the week?

[kenfeliciano]

On a Dashboard page, I'd like to query my active tasks. For me, these are those that are due this week. I like starting my week off on Monday.

happens after monday
happens before next monday

This seems to work like happens >= Monday@midnight AND happens < NextMonday@midnight

At the start of the week this works fine, but here it is Friday and my query is empty because both Monday and Next Monday are three days from now. I understand that the days of the week go towards the closest based on the current day. Is there any setting or technique where we can make these days stick with the current week?

On a Friday: 2022-09-23
Last Monday is two weeks ago Monday: 2022-09-12
Monday is three days away: 2022-09-26
Next Monday is three days away: 2022-09-26
There's no way to get 2022-09-19 it seems

I've got a little markdown file for testing though the dates would need to be altered for future weeks.
test-tasks.md

I really appreciate the Tasks plugin. Thank you so much for maintaining and enhancing it.

[claremacrae]

Hi @kenfeliciano, Thank you for a very clear and focused question, and a very helpful example file.

I can reproduce the behaviour you describe, and I haven't been able to find a way to get this to work using pure Tasks queries, unfortunately. As far as I know, this is not possible.

I experimented with things like 'Friday this week'.

I haven't looked hard, but I think there are other people asking the same thing: #422

How to solve this - with new features.

I can't just change the behaviour for all queries, as this would break some existing queries.

So the options for Tasks are:

1. Add a user option to say 'use forward dates for all my queries'
2. Add an option to the date filters, to signify that they should use fixed dates in the calculations.
3. Support some special extra text in date filters that sets a range of dates, for example due in this week, due in this year. The trouble is, as soon as we add our own date-parsing, on top of chrono, it's going to get quite complicated.

Any suggestions for 2. would be very welcome indeed.

Workaround 1 - fixed dates

In the past, people asking this have been generally pointed to use some kind of daily notes plugin, with a template that calculates the dates - see Daily Agenda in the Tasks docs for ideas.

Workaround 2 - use dataview to create the Tasks query

In Using Dataview to generate Tasks blocks - safe and convenient I show how to use Dataview's dv.current().file.path in a Task filter.

For the time being, I'm afraid the only thing I can think of is to use dataview to calculate the dates you want, and then use them in your Tasks query.

Reason for the current behaviour

Tasks uses the chrono library to parse date strings.

In the source code, the interesting bit is here:

obsidian-tasks/src/Query/DateParser.ts

Lines 3 to 14 in 11a3712

	export class DateParser {
	public static parseDate(input: string, forwardDate: boolean = false): moment.Moment {
	// Using start of day to correctly match on comparison with other dates (like equality).
	return window
	.moment(
	chrono.parseDate(input, undefined, {
	forwardDate: forwardDate,
	}),
	)
	.startOf('day');
	}
	}

Almost all the uses of DateParser.parseDate() use the default value of forwardDate, which is false, so the nearest date is chosen.

That is the cause of this inability to write a simple Tasks query for tasks in a particular week, that works throughout the whole week.

[kenfeliciano]

Thank you for your response. I did look through chrono-node and couldn't make it work either. As @Cito said, it is that newer version 2.4.1 that seems to handle things differently.

[Cito]

Maybe I'm missing something, but strangely, it seems to work for me. I have tried this:

happens after this sunday
happens before next monday

But this also works:

happens after sunday this week
happens before next monday

Or just:

happens after this week
happens before next monday

Maybe you tested with an older plugin version that uses an older chrono version? Because there was a relevant change in the latest version of chrono.

[kenfeliciano]

This (literally) is working great! I don't remember seeing this in the docs. If I just say Sunday or Monday it moves about. But, using this in the queries gives me exactly what I want. Thank you!

This works for me in Obsidian, where it counts, but I do see the same issues with chrono 2.4.1 when I use that version.

[claremacrae]

There's been a PR to update to the new chrono that I hadn't got to. #1061.
Looking at it now.

[Cito]

To make things a bit more confusing, I found that it actually works as I described above with chrono 2.3.9 which is the version that is currently used in Obsidian Tasks 1.14.0.

When I upgrade to chrono 2.4.1, this no longer works and I need to change it like this to make it work again:

happens after past sunday
happens before next monday

I think there is a difference in how "this sunday" is interpreted. In 2.3.9 it was the Sunday at the beginning of the week, in 2.4.1 it is the closest Sunday, which can be Sunday at the end of the week. To refer to the Sunday at the beginning of the week, you need to refer to the past sunday now. I think the new behavior is better.

With chrono 2.4.1 you can also phrase it like this:

happens after past sunday
happens before 8 days after past sunday

[claremacrae]

By the way, I thought it would be nice to allow on or before and on or later in addition to on, before and later. The following filters would then be the same:

(happens before sunday) OR (happens on sunday)
happens on or before sunday

Maybe even a between operator, then you could write:

happens between past sunday and 6 days after past sunday

The between operator should always be inclusve, like in SQL.

But the existing boolean operators already allow to express everything and the above suggestion are only "syntactic sugar". Not sure if it's worthwile to have them.

It's worthwhile to have them, but I think a separate issue from this one and likely to get lost here.

It's also likely to have been requested already though - somewhere in Issues, Idea Discussions, Q&A Discussions, or General Discussions... 🤯 😄

[claremacrae]

I thought I'd seen a due on request, but can't find it. The closest I can find is #124.

@Cito If you have time to add the above suggestions as a new Idea, it would be a great help - it would be a shame to lose them...

[Cito]

Right, #124 is exactly the same idea. I just extended the scope in a comment so that it applies to all kinds of dates, not only due and also to after, not just before. And added #1178 for the between operator as new idea.

[kenfeliciano]

I notice with 2.4.1 of chrono, this does work

happens after past sunday
happens before next monday

But this monday is the same as next monday with 2.4.1. Both are 2022-09-26 on 2022-09-24. Personally, I think chrono should make Past/Last, This, and Next mean different dates always.

[claremacrae]

My head is hurting! It's going to take hours to add tests in Tasks for this, and to update the documentation...

[claremacrae]

I would like to document what's been learned here - huge thanks, @Cito!

Thing is, if I'm going to document it, I think it makes sense to update to 2.4.1 and document the new behaviour of chrono - 2.4.1 - rather than the old one - 2.3.9. If I document the old version, we'll be stuck on that for good, perhaps.

I'm considering make the next release Tasks 2.0, as this is really a breaking change (and I think chrono should have bumped the major version too!)

Anyway, @Cito and @kenfeliciano - I'd appreciate your views.

[Cito]

Suggestion: Maybe we can add a constant that contains the currently used version of chrono, and also a setting that stores the last used version (if missing, it would be considered to be 2.3.9). When the plugin loads, we check whether the two differ, and in this case we show a warning with a link to the chrono changelog or a special page in our docs that lists all incompatible changes in chrono. After showing the warning, we update the chrono version in the settings, so that the warning will not appear again.

Of course when updating chrono to an incompatible version, we should also update at least the minor version of Tasks. A new major version is not really required in my view. In any case what we should not do is wait for the next major version and only then update chrono. I think the earlier we update, the fewer users will have relied on the old chrono.

[claremacrae]

Thanks @Cito - all good points.

I've moved this to #1182. I would really appreciate a pull request for this, please, if you have the capacity - or alternatively, for us to pair on it..

[Cito]

@claremacrae I have made a #task for this now, but I cannot promise that I will find the time.

[claremacrae]

Thank you - much appreciated, and understood!

[kenfeliciano]

@claremacrae I so agree with you that chrono should have bumped a major revision. I say that because of my tests breaking though, not theirs.

@Cito I agree that for my purposes, I'll be able to use last Sunday and 8 days after last Sunday to get the date range I want with 2.4.1 and I thank you for that alternative.

I apologize for getting back late on this. You all move fast!

I thought I found a bug in chrono that broke all my tests but I guess my tests were the problem. When I made them better, they now pass in 2.3.9 and 2.4.1. The only difference is, in 2.4.1, Sunday is at the end of the week instead of the start. This is a much shorter comment now!

But, now I'm ready to just be retired again :) I use the same exact code that works in a jest test in a tiny little node program and chrono gives me the wrong answer.

const today = new Date(2022, 9 - 1, 25) // 2022-09-25

• in Jest chrono.parseDate('Monday next week', today).toDateString() = 'Mon Oct 03 2022'
• in node script, chrono.parseDate('Monday next week', today).toDateString() = 'Mon Sep 26 2022'

I know almost nothing about running things in node so perhaps there's something not setup right. I sort of trust jest but it might just be confirmation (of tests passing) bias!

I'm enclosing my tests for chrono. I'm testing every day in every prior, current, and next week and they all work. Perhaps these will be useful somehow.
chrono.test.zip

I can try and help with test cases or documentation. I really do like this project.

[claremacrae]

Now that there is an explain command, it is a lot easier to see how Tasks is interpreting date strings in filters.

https://obsidian-tasks-group.github.io/obsidian-tasks/queries/explaining-queries/.

I may write up some systematic tests to get good coverage of a wide range of date filters, and how they are interpreted on different days of the week.

[claremacrae]

Just to note that a lot of work has been done recently to give more control over date searches, and to search for date ranges.

See the several sections in the docs at:
https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Queries/Filters#Searching%20for%20dates

Also, the various tables at the end of that page show how a range of date queries are now interpreted.
https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Queries/Filters#Appendix:%20Tasks%202.0.0%20improvements%20to%20date%20filters

So I'm going to close this.

If there are specific cases that still don't work, then bug reports for individual problem cases would be very welcome.