In Tcl [Changes in Tcl/Tk 8.5%|%8.5], the old (up to 8.4) '''`[clock scan]`''' is deprecated in favour of the new
'''`[clock scan] -format`'''.

This is covered by [TIP] [http://www.tcl.tk/cgi-bin/tct/tip/173.html%|%173], and I understand the reasons behind creating
the new version, but I think it would be a great pity to lose a great '''usability''' aid for applications that use dates - an easy way
of letting the '''end user''' type in "yesterday" or "last week". I may be missing something, but I can't see any way to deal with this in the new version.

I guess what I am really saying is, deprecate it if you like, but don't '''ever''' take the old code out.

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[LV]:

======
set EASTERN ":America/New_York"
set s [clock scan now -timezone $EASTERN ]
set yesterday [clock add $s -1 day -timezone $EASTERN]
set x [clock format $yesterday -timezone $EASTERN]
puts $x
======

Of course, you don't have to do things as separate calls - you can do it as all one call.

======
set nextweek [clock add $s 1 week -timezone $EASTERN]
set x [clock format $nextweek -timezone $EASTERN]
======

'''`clock add`''' should provide most, if not more, capability of the old freeform clock scan, with the downside of using a slightly different notation.

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[EMJ]:

I'm sure I could code anything I need, ''but'' I was actually talking about end-users, who would rather type in "yesterday" or "last week" or "13 jan" or "jan 13" than select from a popup calendar - at the moment I just pass their input to '''clock scan''', what would I have to do if it wasn't there? 

[slebetman]: Agreed. Configuration files for most of my apps allows users to enter things this way when specifying time or time interval. Having to handle this myself means that I have to write a proc that handles possibly hundreds of cases for:
  1hour
  1 hour
  5 hours 20 seconds
  tomorrow
  yesterday
  next week
  nextmonth
  lastweek
  lastyear
  yesterday-1hour
  -4years
  ...
It's nice that clock scan already does this for me.


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