Thank you for git-annex, it's awesome!

I recently figured I could add git-annex metadata to my research data files that contains the start and end date of timeseries data inside the files so a quick lookup by date range (”which files contain data in that time range”) is possible.

This is possible when using numeric timestamps (e.g. unix timestamp like 1669981463) but not with stringy dates (e.g. 2022-11-12T20:10:14+0200) as --metadata fieldname>=VALUE does numeric comparison.

Proposal: How about when --metadata fieldname>=VALUE falls back to string comparison when VALUE can't be parsed as a number?

Test case

Consider this script make-git-annex-dir-with-timestamps.sh:

#/bin/sh
fmt="$1";test -n "$fmt" || fmt="%FT%T%z"
# make a new git annex repository
d=git-annex-with-times-"$fmt";chmod +w -R "$d";rm -rf "$d";mkdir "$d";cd "$d"
git init
git annex init
# create some files
for i in `seq 1 9`;do echo "File $i" > "file$i";done
git annex add .
git commit -m "Add files"
# add metadata to files
for i in `seq 1 9`;do 
    time_start="$(date -d"$((-20 + $i)) hours" +"$fmt")"
    (set -x;git annex metadata --set time-start="$time_start" "file$i")
    time_end="$(date -d"$((-10 + $i)) hours" +"$fmt")"
    (set -x;git annex metadata --set time-end="$time_end" "file$i")
done
timerange_start="$(date -d "-16 hours -5 minutes" +"$fmt")"
timerange_end="$(date -d "-12 hours +5 minutes" +"$fmt")"
(
set -x
git annex find \
    "-(" --metadata "time-start>=$timerange_start"  --and --metadata "time-start<=$timerange_end" "-)" \
    --or \
    "-(" --metadata "time-end>=$timerange_start"  --and --metadata "time-end<=$timerange_end" "-)"
)
echo "⬆⬆⬆ This should only output file4 through file8 ⬆⬆⬆"

Invoked with unix timestamps time format, it works as expected:

> ./make-git-annex-dir-with-timestamps.sh '%s'
# ...
+ git annex find '-(' --metadata 'time-start>=1669923315' --and --metadata 'time-start<=1669938315' '-)' --or '-(' --metadata 'time-end>=1669923315' --and --metadata 'time-end<=1669938315' '-)'
file4
file5
file6
file7
file8
⬆⬆⬆ This should only output file4 through file8 ⬆⬆⬆

However, other stringy date formats match all files:

# typical ISO-ish time format
> ./make-git-annex-dir-with-timestamps.sh "%FT%T%z"
# ...
+ git annex find '-(' --metadata 'time-start>=2022-12-01T20:49:37+0100' --and --metadata 'time-start<=2022-12-02T00:59:37+0100' '-)' --or '-(' --metadata 'time-end>=2022-12-01T20:49:37+0100' --and --metadata 'time-end<=2022-12-02T00:59:37+0100' '-)'
file1
file2
file3
file4
file5
file6
file7
file8
file9
⬆⬆⬆ This should only output file4 through file8 ⬆⬆⬆

# git-annex's own time format for 'FIELDNAME-lastchanged'
> ./make-git-annex-dir-with-timestamps.sh "%Y-%m-%d@%H-%M-%S"
# ...
+ git annex find '-(' --metadata 'time-start>=2022-12-01@20-38-04' --and --metadata 'time-start<=2022-12-02@00-38-04' '-)' --or '-(' --metadata 'time-end>=2022-12-01@20-38-04' --and --metadata 'time-end<=2022-12-02@00-38-04' '-)'
file1
file2
file3
file4
file5
file6
file7
file8
file9
⬆⬆⬆ This should only output file4 through file8 ⬆⬆⬆

Yann / @nobodyinperson

fixed --Joey