This document describes version 2 of the timelog.txt file format.

HISTORY

The format of this file was strongly influenced by the design of the todo.txt system created by Gina Trapani. The major idea was to have a format that could be easily read and modified by a human with a text editor. This format should be a simple as possible, and require no proprietary technology to read or write.

Some of the data stored in the file and the reporting of the data was influenced by years of use of the TEAK tool on the Palm. I wrote this tool to replace TEAK once it was obvious that the Palm was no more.

DESCRIPTION

Each time entry resides on a line by itself. Each line is made up of an optional marker and two parts separated by a marker character, usually a space: a time/date stamp and a task description. There should be no leading or trailing white space on the lines.

The format also supports comments defined as having a # as the first character on the line.

Time/Date Stamp

The time/date stamp is the first thing on each line and is set in the local timezone. Except where we cross from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time or vice versa this should cause no problems.

The format of this part of the line is 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'. This format is relatively easy for a person to read, is easily and unambiguously parsed, and sorts nicely.

Entry

The entry is just text that describes the task or event we are now beginning. To enhance reporting, there are two forms of metadata. The first string starting with a + is treated as a project. All events with the same project are reported together. The first string starting with @ is treated as the name of the task. Any remaining text is treated as further detail on the task.

If no task name is specified, all of the event string except the project is treated as the task name. The task name is optional because not everyone will find it useful to define consistent tasks for reporting.

There is one special case. An entry of stop stops timing the current task without starting a new task.

Examples

The following examples should make the format clear.

Full Featured Entry Line

A full entry using all of the features would look line this:

2013-07-01 10:01:23 +Timelog @Document File Format

The project in this case is Timelog, which specifies that I am working on this module. The task name is Docment, which means I am documenting something on the project. The string 'File Format' specifies more detail on what I am documenting.

This task began just after 10:01 on July 1st.

Entry With No Detail

This following entry contains both a project and a task, but with no extra detail.

2013-07-01 08:05:14 +Admin @Email

In this case, I'm just checking my email for the morning. There is really no need for any more detail than that. Although not a real project, grouping miscellaneous tasks through the day into a Admin pseudo-project simplifies tracking administrative tasks.

Entry with No Explicit Task

2013-07-01 13:05:45 +Timelog Submit to crates.io

In this case, the task would be 'Submit to crates.io' because I haven't separated the task name from the details.

Special Entries

Special entries are points in time that do not feed in to the normal time processing. All special entries have a special character replacing the space after the date stamp that indicates which type of marked entry it is. These entries are not required to perform useful tracking of your time, but they have been found to be useful in later uses of the timelog tool.

All special entries are ignored when reporting on times.

Ignored Entries

If the mark character after the time stamp is !, the entry is marked as ignored. This means that an task would have started, but was later ignored.

2013-07-01 10:01:23!+Timelog @Meeting File Format

A good example would be when a task or meeting is supposed to start, but after just after you mark the time, it gets canceled. Since you won't spend any time in that task, you don't want to track it. However the ignored entry marks that it happened, even if it was not actually used in time tracking.

Zero Duration Events

If the mark character after the time stamp is ^, the entry is a zero duration event (or event for short). An event marks something happening at a point in time, rather than an entry for at one end of a span of time.

2013-07-01 10:01:23^+Timelog System restart

For example, you might use a event to indicate when an alert happens, or to mark when during the day that some irregular event occurs.