Hi Julie,

Sounds like Open Refine would be the a great tool for this. but if you 
wish to use excel, and don't mind a little sorting, then you can use a 
mix of the TEXT and LEFT/RIGHT functions to convert dates. First sort by 
like date formats and work through the list in batches.

For example
  if cell B2 = "August 1947", then use =TEXT(B2,"YYYY-MM"), etc.
if cell B2 = "Winter 1985-1986", then use =RIGHT(B2,9)

hope this helps,
Monica


On 10/30/2017 11:04 AM, Julie Swierczek wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm looking for some help with parsing dates. I have inherited over 430 HTML finding aids that I need to migrate to ArchivesSpace. I have an excel template that creates EADs from folder lists, and I use that to get the finding aids into ArchivesSpace. (It is a simplified version of the Spreadsheet from Heaven: http://clir.pacscl.org/2012/03/19/excel-to-xml-the-spreadsheet-from-heaven/.) Mine has columns for box number, series, folder title, normalized single or begin date, normalized end date, free-form date, and notes. The tricky part is filling in the normalized date columns. They need to be in the format YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY-M, or YYYY. So far, I have found dates in the following formats, and I've indicated after the '|' how I'd like them to be normalized:
>
> 1947|1947
> August 1947|1947-08
> August 3, 1947|1947-08-03
> August 3-7, 1947|1947-08-03/1947-08-07
> July 24, 1914 - January 30, 1915|1914-07-24/1915-01-30
> May 23, 1957-June 20, 1957|1957-05-23/1957-06-20
> 1947 (August)|1947-08
> 1947 (August 3)|1947-08-03
> 1947 (August 3-7)|1947-08-03/1947-08-07
> May 14 (?)|ERROR
> 1917?|1917
> May 14, ____|ERROR
> ca. 1947|1947
> ca. 1971-1972|1971/1972
> ca. 1980s|1980/1989
> circa 1947|1947
> circa 1939-1940|1939/1940
> 1944 (April - May)|1944-04/1944-05
> 1939 (November) - 1940 (August)|1939-11/1940-08
> 1955 (Jan.-June)|1955-01/1955-06
> 1939 (November 6) - 1940 (August 7)|1939-11-16/1940-08-07
> June-December 1983|1983-06/1983-12
> August 24 1988; October 31, 1988|1988-08-24/1988-10-31
> Winter 1985-1986|1985/1986
> 1986-|1986
> through 1983|ERROR
> thru 198|ERROR
> 1933, 1937-1938, 1941|1933/1938
> 1897, 1906|1897/1906
> pre-1975|ERROR
> pre-1975 (May)|ERROR
> 1965-1975, n.d.|1965/1975
> undated|
> n.d.|
> 1932, 1940s-1975, n.d.|1932/1975
> 1960s|1960/1969
> 1930s-1950s|1930/1959
> 1954 and undated|1954
> 5/9/1970|1970-05-09
> Saturday, 9 May 1970|1970-05-09
> 20 Jan 1973|1973-01-20
> 1944-1950 [died Aug. 1949]|ERROR
> 1967-onward|1967
> January 27, 1975 [1974?]|ERROR
> re: 1906|1906
> Easter 1961|1961
> May 31, 1964-Fall 1965|1964-05-31/1965
> June 2 - ____, 1971|ERROR
> n.d.; May 26, 1976|1976-05-26
> May 1973 - Jul7 1973|1973-05/1973-07-07
> May 1973-July 1973|1973-05/1973-07
>
> I feel like I read to the end of the internet and didn't find any tools that are easy to use.[1][2][3][4] (Where "easy to use" means "does not require a degree in computer science or software engineering or *ahem* several hours of 'spare time' to learn how to use this tool". I know some people have jobs where they get to spend time doing cool stuff like that, but this ain't one of them. This is more of a firefighter job, where you just put out one fire after another (and the arsonists follow you around and set more while you aren't looking).)
>
> I have heard wonderful things about Timetwister (https://github.com/alexduryee/timetwister) but I don't know Ruby, and neither does my technical support team (of 0). I gave myself a day to try to learn just enough Ruby to use this, but, hey, failure is a thing that happens.
>
> I know a little bit of Python, but I Am Not A Programmer™ and I need things spelled out as though it were my first day using Python. (I know Python the same way you would know a foreign language if you memorized one sentence from a tourist phrasebook each week.  You could muddle through reading something if you had all the time in the world and a dictionary, but you wouldn't really *know* the language.)
>
> I am rapidly approaching the point where it would be faster for me to type the dates manually than spend any more time trying to figure this out, but I am concerned about introducing errors into the dates by typing them.
>
> So, while I am off trying to use OpenRefine and Excel, with the world's sloppiest regex and GREL to see if I can somehow transform the majority of these dates - if not all of them - I thought I'd reach out to the group and see if anyone can lend a hand. I will pay you in cookies (or your preferred treat). For some of the dates above, like the ones with underscores, I'd be fine if the process just returned an error, so I could highlight the error cells in Excel and fix those dates by hand.  But I think the vast majority of the dates can be handled programmatically, and I don't feel like reinventing the wheel because I'm sure someone has already figured this out. I just need it to be easier to implement.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Julie Swierczek
> Breaker of Dates (and Software)