SinhalaDate

A Python library for parsing and formatting Sinhala dates and times. SinhalaDate makes it easy to work with natural language date expressions in Sinhala, the official language of Sri Lanka.

Features

• Natural Language Parsing: Parse Sinhala date expressions like "හෙට උදේ 10.30ට" (tomorrow morning at 10:30)
• Relative Date Support: Handle expressions like "අද" (today), "හෙට" (tomorrow), "ඊයේ" (yesterday)
• Day of Week Parsing: Parse days like "සඳුදා" (Monday), "ලබන සිකුරාදා" (next Friday)
• Ordinal Date Support: Parse ordinal dates like "පහළොස්වෙනිදා" (15th)
• Time Parsing: Parse time expressions with Sinhala time words
• Custom Formatting: Format dates in Sinhala with custom format strings

Installation

pip install sinhaladate

Quick Start

from sinhaladate import parse, format_sinhala_dates
import datetime

# Parse Sinhala date expressions
date1 = parse("හෙට උදේ 10.30ට")  # Tomorrow morning at 10:30
date2 = parse("ලබන සිකුරාදා")    # Next Friday
date3 = parse("අද")               # Today
date4 = parse("පහළොස්වෙනිදා")     # 15th of current/next month

# Format dates in Sinhala
formatted = format_sinhala_dates(datetime.datetime.now())
print(formatted)  # Output: 2024 දෙසැම්බර් 15 වැනිදා, සිකුරාදා, 02:30 ප.ව.

Usage Examples

Parsing Relative Dates

from sinhaladate import parse

# Today and relative days
parse("අද")           # Today
parse("හෙට")           # Tomorrow
parse("අනිද්දා")       # Day after tomorrow
parse("ඊයේ")           # Yesterday
parse("පෙරේදා")        # Day before yesterday

Parsing Days of Week

# Days of the week
parse("සඳුදා")        # Monday
parse("අඟහරුවාදා")    # Tuesday
parse("බදාදා")        # Wednesday
parse("බ්‍රහස්පතින්දා") # Thursday
parse("සිකුරාදා")      # Friday
parse("සෙනසුරාදා")     # Saturday
parse("ඉරිදා")         # Sunday

# With modifiers
parse("ලබන සිකුරාදා")  # Next Friday
parse("පසුගිය සඳුදා")   # Last Monday

Parsing Ordinal Dates

# Ordinal dates
parse("පළවෙනිදා")     # 1st
parse("දෙවෙනිදා")      # 2nd
parse("පහළොස්වෙනිදා")  # 15th
parse("තිස්වෙනිදා")    # 30th

# With months
parse("ජූලි හතරවෙනිදා")  # July 4th
parse("දෙසැම්බර් විසිපස්වෙනිදා")  # December 25th

Parsing Time

# Time expressions
parse("උදේ 10.30ට")    # 10:30 AM
parse("සවස 3යි")       # 3:00 PM
parse("රාත්‍රී 9ට පමණ")  # 9:00 PM

Formatting Dates

from sinhaladate import format_sinhala_dates
import datetime

# Default formatting
date = datetime.datetime(2024, 12, 25, 19, 30)
formatted = format_sinhala_dates(date)
print(formatted)  # 2024 දෙසැම්බර් 25 වැනිදා, බදාදා, 07:30 ප.ව.

# Custom formatting
custom = format_sinhala_dates(date, "%S_A විතර")  # Just the day name
print(custom)  # බදාදා විතර

Format String Codes

When using format_sinhala_dates(), you can use these format codes:

• %Y - Year (2024)
• %S_B - Sinhala month name (දෙසැම්බර්)
• %d - Day of month (25)
• %S_A - Sinhala day name (බදාදා)
• %I - Hour in 12-hour format (07)
• %M - Minute (30)
• %p - AM/PM in Sinhala (ප.ව.)
• %S_Do - Ordinal suffix (වැනිදා)

Error Handling

The library gracefully handles parsing errors:

from sinhaladate import parse, SinhalaDateError

# Invalid expressions return None
result = parse("invalid text")
print(result)  # None

# You can check for parsing success
if result is None:
    print("Could not parse the date expression")

Supported Sinhala Expressions

Relative Days

• අද (today)
• හෙට (tomorrow)
• අනිද්දා (day after tomorrow)
• ඉන් අනිද්දා (day after tomorrow)
• ඊයේ (yesterday)
• පෙරේදා (day before yesterday)

Days of Week

• සඳුදා (Monday)
• අඟහරුවාදා (Tuesday)
• බදාදා (Wednesday)
• බ්‍රහස්පතින්දා (Thursday)
• සිකුරාදා (Friday)
• සෙනසුරාදා (Saturday)
• ඉරිදා (Sunday)

Months

• ජනවාරි (January)
• පෙබරවාරි (February)
• මාර්තු (March)
• අප්‍රේල් (April)
• මැයි (May)
• ජූනි (June)
• ජූලි (July)
• අගෝස්තු (August)
• සැප්තැම්බර් (September)
• ඔක්තෝබර් (October)
• නොවැම්බර් (November)
• දෙසැම්බර් (December)

Time of Day

• උදේ / උදෑසන (morning/AM)
• සවස / හවස (afternoon/PM)
• රාත්‍රී / රෑ (night/PM)
• දහවල් (noon/PM)
• පාන්දර (early morning/AM)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Related projects

More Sri Lanka–focused Python tools by the same author: slnic (NIC numbers) · tokscope (tokenizer efficiency) · cetana (BDI agents)

Acknowledgments

• Thanks to the Sinhala language community for inspiration
• Built with ❤️ for Sri Lanka