CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iosevernote
iamdavidlam
iamdavidlam

Reputation: 404

Evernote search with date range

My objective is to display all notes created on date A, date B, date C etc.

I'm building an Evernote Query as such:

//for all notes created on 2015 May 11 
ENNoteSearch *searchMayEleven = [ENNoteSearch noteSearchWithSearchString: @"created:20150511 -created:20150512"];

[[ENSession sharedSession] findNotesWithSearch:searchMayEleven
 inNotebook:nil 
orScope:ENSessionSearchScopeAll 
sortOrder:ENSessionSortOrderRecentlyCreated 
maxResults:100 
completion:^(NSArray *findNotesResults, NSError *findNotesError) {
//completion block
}]];

My results, however, fetch notes that are created on 12 May as well as 11 May.

1) I deduce that I have to set a timezone in my Evernote Session. Based on your experience, is this a valid deduction?

2) If so, I haven't been able to find a way to do so after reading through the documentation. Is it even possible?

3) Would you advice an alternative approach? Perhaps using the notestore instead?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 347

Answers (3)

Ciprian Rarau
Ciprian Rarau

Reputation: 3120

In Evernote your dates are being kept in UTC.

When you make the search you need to create an Evernote search grammar that's relative to the timezone that you're interested in. In your case the timezone of the client or of the iPhone.

To get the user timezone:

ENSession * session = [ENSession sharedSession];
EDAMUser * user = session.user;

where the EDAMUser class has this structure:

@interface EDAMUser : FATObject 
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSNumber * id; // EDAMUserID
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString * username;
...
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString * timezone;

For example my user timezone is: America/Montreal so on EST.

In order to get all the notes created May 11th you need to construct this Evernote search grammar:

 @"created:20150511T040000Z -created:20150512T040000Z"

notice the ...T040000Z at the end.

So the conclusion is that you need to include the "definition" of the date from the client's perspective otherwise the query will work on UTC.

Here is an example of how to build the Evernote grammar search for the current day:

-(NSString *)buildQueryStringForDate: (NSDate *)date {
    NSDateFormatter * formatter = [NSDateFormatter new];
    [formatter setDateFormat:@"yyyyMMdd'T'HHmmss'Z'"];
    formatter.timeZone = [NSTimeZone timeZoneWithName:@"UTC"];
    formatter.locale = [NSLocale systemLocale];

    DateRange * dateRange = [DateRange rangeForDayContainingDate:[NSDate new]];
    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"created:%@ -created:%@", [formatter stringFromDate:dateRange.startDate], [formatter stringFromDate:dateRange.endDate]];
}

The code for [DateRange rangeForDayContainingDate:[NSDate new]] can be found here: How can I generate convenient date ranges based on a given NSDate?

I hope this helps.

Upvotes: 2

iamdavidlam
iamdavidlam

Reputation: 404

Given the time constraint on hand, I am deploying the following solution:

-(NSString *)buildQueryStringForDate: (NSDate *)date {
    NSDateFormatter *dateFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    NSDate *dateAfter = [date dateByAddingDays:1];

    NSTimeZone *currentTimeZone = [NSTimeZone localTimeZone];
    [dateFormat setDateFormat: @"'created:'YYYYMMdd'T'HHmmss"];
    [dateFormat setTimeZone:currentTimeZone];

    NSString *searchString = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"%@ -%@", [dateFormat stringFromDate:[date dateByAddingTimeInterval:  currentTimeZone.secondsFromGMT]], [dateFormat stringFromDate:[dateAfter dateByAddingTimeInterval:   currentTimeZone.secondsFromGMT]]];
    NSLog(@"%@",searchString);
   return searchString;
}

In all, it's a hack using NSDate instance method of secondsFromGMT to offset the timezone difference. Does not really use the correct concepts. but it'd have to do for now.

Any comments will be warmly welcomed :)

Upvotes: 0

mattcarrollcode
mattcarrollcode

Reputation: 3479

It sounds like this might be a time zone issue. The fact that notes from the previous day are being surfaced could be explained by the fact that the search you are performing checks the time as reported by the client (usually the local time zone of the client) and not UTC or any well-defined time zone.

Your existing search grammar: created:20150511 -created:20150512 should return notes created after May 11 and before May 12th utilizing the time and date on the client that was used when the note was created. To force the search to use absolute time for when a note was created and not the created time as reported by the Evernote client you must use the Z postfix to the date-time stamp as seen in the following search grammar which will you return notes created only on May 15, 2015 UTC:

created:20150511T000000Z -created:20150512T000000Z

Sources
https://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/search_grammar.php https://dev.evernote.com/doc/reference/Types.html#Struct_Note

Upvotes: 1

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