date(format, datestring) method mentioned but not available

[jiahao]

Here is a Chinese date in the common Western calendar:

julia> date("2009年12月01日")
ERROR: Can't parse Date, please use date(format,datestring)
 in date at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:155

julia> methods(date)
#10 methods for generic function "date":
date(x::DateTime{C<:Calendar,T<:Offsets}) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:61
date(y::Int64) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:138
date(y::Int64,m::Int64) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:138
date(y::Int64,m::Int64,d::Int64) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:138
date{C<:Calendar}(y::Int64,m::Int64,d::Int64,cal::Type{C<:Calendar}) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:138
date(y::Union(Period,Real)) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:139
date(y::Union(Period,Real),m::Union(Period,Real)) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:139
date(y::Union(Period,Real),m::Union(Period,Real),d::Union(Period,Real)) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:139
date{C<:Calendar}(y::Union(Period,Real),m::Union(Period,Real),d::Union(Period,Real),cal::Type{C<:Calendar}) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:139
date(s::String) at /Users/jiahao/.julia/Datetime/src/Datetime.jl:146

Currently, it seems that the only way you can parse this correctly is with

 Datetime.dt2string(Datetime.DateTimeFormat("yyyy年mm月dd日"), "2009年12月01日")

[quinnj]

This is also available in the Base PR.

[quinnj]

Though this case is interesting because currently only a single separator is support for separating Date or Time fields. I think this can be remedied though, so I'll look into it.

[quinnj]

Ok, I've been working on this and the Base PR now handles this case. Do you have some more variants on the above I can add to our tests?

[quinnj]

New Date parsing machinery is available in the dev branch. ed8123ede2e316a181a781ecd54fd735657b6cd8