The Problem: Parsing Date Components in a Flexible Way
Many .NET solutions require date parsing, but existing solutions often enforce a fixed structure or rely on DateTime, which:
- Doesn’t support partial dates (e.g., just a month and day, or just a year and week).
- Requires full timestamps, even when only a subset of the date is needed.
- Offers limited flexibility in defining custom formats.
Chrononemesis was created to solve these issues by allowing precise, component-based parsing.
The Solution: Component-Based Parsing
Instead of forcing a full DateTime structure, Chrononemesis allows parsing only the needed components.
For example:
- Extract just a Year and Month (
yyyy-MM) without needing a full timestamp. - Parse a Week-based format (
yyyy-'W'ww) without converting toDateTime. - Use a custom structure (e.g.,
YearQuarter) instead of adapting toDateTime’s limitations.
Decoupling Parsers and Structures
One of the key design principles of Chrononemesis is the separation of concerns between parsers and structures.
Parsers handle the extraction of data (e.g., getting 2025 from "2025-08") where Structures define how the extracted values are stored and used.
This decoupling means that:
- Parsers don’t enforce a specific structure – they only return the extracted values.
- Users are free to define their own structs/classes to store the parsed components.
- Parsing logic remains independent from data representation, making the library more flexible.
