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todotxt / todo.txt

‼️ A complete primer on the whys and hows of todo.txt.
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Clarify wording on dates #21

Open daniellandau opened 5 years ago

daniellandau commented 5 years ago

The previous wording could be understood to mean that completion date is mandatory if and only if creation date is also included.

andoresuperesu commented 5 years ago

Wouldn't the completion date be always optional also? I mean, the format doesn't require a completion date ever. The wording should be something like: If you've used the prepended date (optional), you can use that with the completed date (also optional) to calculate how many days it took to complete a task. Do I understand it correctly?

JMoerman commented 5 years ago

The wording should be something like: If you've used the prepended date (optional), you can use that with the completed date (also optional) to calculate how many days it took to complete a task.

I think this is slightly better: If you've used the prepended date (optional), you can use that with the completed date (which is in that case required) to calculate how many days it took to complete a task.

For finished tasks a completion date is required if a creation date is present. See:

If you’ve prepended the creation date to your task, on completion it will appear directly after the completion date. This is so your completed tasks sort by date using standard sort tools.

This part not only gives information on where the location of the completion date, but it also points to the completion date being required if a creation date is present. Otherwise, sorting tasks by date completion date wouldn't work. This together with

With the completed date (required), if you've used the prepended date (optional), ...

leads me to believe that a completion date is required only when a creation date is present.

I do not think a completion date is required in all cases, which is the way @daniellandau explains it in https://github.com/JMoerman/Go-For-It/pull/56, as:

  1. Both creation date and completion date are explicitly optional according to the spec.
  2. If a completion date was mandatory a creation date would be mandatory as well as, according to the specification, a creation date must be present if a completion date is.

In any case, I agree that

With the completed date (required), if you've used the prepended date (optional), you can calculate how many days it took to complete a task.

should be replaced with a less confusing sentence.