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authorPaul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>2004-11-16 08:16:57 +0000
committerPaul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>2004-11-16 08:16:57 +0000
commit37c8b2b8484a10e8b1efbe114fd65aa1ac048214 (patch)
treec22b0b0dc69f8586f08284df302bdad10b70b1ee /doc
parent1a126a58992f2cd613335aaed6d306ec45d4dfed (diff)
downloadcoreutils-37c8b2b8484a10e8b1efbe114fd65aa1ac048214.tar.xz
(General date syntax): "next" is 1, not 2.
Document that "second" isn't allowed as an ordinal number.
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
-rw-r--r--doc/getdate.texi12
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/doc/getdate.texi b/doc/getdate.texi
index 9280c5087..d1d42b3e3 100644
--- a/doc/getdate.texi
+++ b/doc/getdate.texi
@@ -89,13 +89,17 @@ many flavors of items:
@findex first @r{in date strings}
@findex next @r{in date strings}
@findex last @r{in date strings}
-A few numbers may be written out in words in most contexts. This is
+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). Here is the list: @samp{first} for 1, @samp{next} for 2,
-@samp{third} for 3, @samp{fourth} for 4, @samp{fifth} for 5,
+below). Among the most commonly used ordinal numbers, the word
+@samp{last} stands for @math{-1}, @samp{this} stands for 0, and
+@samp{first} and @samp{next} both stand for 1. Because the word
+@samp{second} stands for the unit of time there is no way to write the
+ordinal number 2, but for convenience @samp{third} stands for 3,
+@samp{fourth} for 4, @samp{fifth} for 5,
@samp{sixth} for 6, @samp{seventh} for 7, @samp{eighth} for 8,
@samp{ninth} for 9, @samp{tenth} for 10, @samp{eleventh} for 11 and
-@samp{twelfth} for 12. Also, @samp{last} means exactly @math{-1}.
+@samp{twelfth} for 12.
@cindex months, written-out
When a month is written this way, it is still considered to be written