Detectype

A Rust library and CLI tool for detecting data types from strings, starting with comprehensive date detection.

Features

• Date Detection: Supports multiple date formats including:

  • ISO 8601 (2023-12-25, 2023-12-25T10:30:00Z)
  • US formats (12/25/2023, 12-25-2023)
  • European formats (25.12.2023)
  • Unix timestamps (1703462400, 1703462400000)
  • Year-only (2023)
  • RFC formats (RFC 2822, RFC 3339)
  • Multi-language support:
    • English: "January 15 2023", "15 January 2023"
    • Spanish: "15 enero 2023", "25 de diciembre de 2023"

• High Confidence Scoring: Each detection includes a confidence score

• Extensive Testing: Unit tests, property-based tests, and fuzzing

• CLI Tool: Command-line interface for batch processing

Usage

As a Library

use detectype::{detect_type, DataType};

let result = detect_type("2023-12-25");
assert_eq!(result, DataType::Date);

let result = detect_type("hello world");
assert_eq!(result, DataType::String);

CLI Tool

# Single input
detectype "2023-12-25"

# With detailed information (including language detection)
detectype --verbose "15 enero 2023"
# Output: Date (Date format: DAY_MONTH_YEAR_ES (confidence: 0.85, language: es))

# From file
detectype --file dates.txt

# From stdin with verbose output
echo "25 de diciembre de 2023" | detectype --stdin --verbose

Installation

cargo build --release

Testing

# Run all tests
cargo test

# Run property-based tests
cargo test --test date_property_tests

# Run integration tests  
cargo test --test integration_tests

Supported Date Formats

Format	Example	Pattern
ISO 8601 Date	2023-12-25	YYYY-MM-DD
ISO 8601 DateTime	2023-12-25T10:30:00Z	YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ
US Date (slash)	12/25/2023	MM/DD/YYYY
US Date (dash)	12-25-2023	MM-DD-YYYY
European Date	25.12.2023	DD.MM.YYYY
Unix Timestamp	1703462400	10 digits
Unix Timestamp (ms)	1703462400000	13 digits
Year Only	2023	YYYY
English Natural	January 15 2023	Month Day Year
English Natural	15 January 2023	Day Month Year
Spanish Natural	15 enero 2023	Day Month Year
Spanish Natural	25 de diciembre de 2023	Day de Month de Year

Architecture

• src/lib.rs - Main library interface
• src/detectors/date.rs - Date detection implementation
• src/error.rs - Error handling
• src/types.rs - Type definitions
• src/bin/main.rs - CLI tool
• tests/ - Comprehensive test suite

Multi-Language Support

The library currently supports date detection in:

• English: Full and abbreviated month names (January/Jan, February/Feb, etc.)
• Spanish: Full and abbreviated month names (enero/ene, febrero/feb, etc.)

Language Detection Features:

• Automatic language detection based on month names
• Handles ambiguous abbreviations (prioritizes English for conflicts)
• Supports Spanish prepositions ("de") in date formats
• Case-insensitive matching
• Confidence scoring per language

Adding New Languages:

The architecture is designed for easy language extension. To add a new language:

1. Add month name mappings in src/detectors/date.rs
2. Add regex patterns for language-specific formats
3. Update the parsing logic in parse_natural_language_date
4. Add comprehensive tests

Future Enhancements

• Integer detection
• Float detection
• Boolean detection
• Email detection
• URL detection
• Phone number detection
• Credit card detection
• Additional languages (French, German, Italian, etc.)