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Specification of dates

Dates or a range of dates may be specified in many different ways:

1. relative with respect to today's date: by a positive or a negative number of days with respect to today, or by using the words Y[ESTERDAY], TOD[AY] or TOM[ORROW].

2. absolute in the form DD-MM-YY (day-month-year), where ` -', ` /' and ` :' are acceptable delimiters (bearing in mind that ` -' used as a minus sign takes precedence over its use as a delimiter), while no delimiter is required when the month is specified by name (see below). If a part of the date is omitted, that part is assumed to be equal to the corresponding part in today's date: /3 is treated as MM=3 (DD and YY are the same as today's), but -3 is treated as a relative date (3 days before today). In principle, wildcards () are allowed in any part of the date specification string.

   MM can be given numerically or by name. In the latter case an unambiguous set of first letters must be typed as a minimum (ja, f, mar, ap, may, jun, jul, au, s, o, n, d); no delimiters are required in this case.

   YY may be given with or without the century part; if 0YY<50, the year specification is read as YY=2000+YY; if 50<=YY<100, then YY=1900+YY.