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I was not very statisfied with the leading zero that I got in my insert-date function.

It looks now as 09 jun 2015, instead 9 jun 2015.

To solve this, I looked into the source code of s.el and wrote a function for it. 

(defun insert-date ()
  "Insert current date 1 jun yyyy."
  (interactive)
  (insert
   (if (string-prefix-p "0" (format-time-string "%d"))   ;; Checks if there is a leding zero. 
       (s-right (format-time-string "%d") 1)             ;; If so, chop it off with the library s, then s-right. 
     (format-time-string "%d"))                          ;; If not (for example, 10, 12, 25, 31), let it so. 
   (format-time-string "%b %Y"))                         ;; Then the rest (jun 2015). 
  )

After some tweaking, I still got the same error that there is a wrong type argument in sequencep 1. But I couldn't figure out.

Anybody have the golden hint?

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  • 1
    What not use %e instead of %d? As per the documentation for format-time-string: "%d is the day of the month, zero-padded, %e is blank-padded." And if you don't want that blank you can send it to string-trim. Also, if you look at the doc for s-right, the function signature looks like this: (s-right LEN S). You have it swapped. – nanny Jun 9 '15 at 20:15
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    @nanny I'm aware of %e but it adds an extra space, which I don't prefer. So foo-bar (01-06-2015) will be foo-bar ( 1-06-2015). Never knew I could send it to string-trim, but I need to check if there is any space. Thanks for the suggestion. And it seems I have swapped it, indeed. Your answer was the right, it worked again. – ReneFroger Jun 9 '15 at 20:19
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    I made an edit: you can always use (string-trim (format-time-string "%e %b %Y")). – nanny Jun 9 '15 at 20:22
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    @nanny Thanks, that's even a better solution. I wished that you added it as an answer, so I could validate your answer as the right one. Thanks! – ReneFroger Jun 9 '15 at 20:28
  • You're welcome! Not a problem, just accept your own answer as the correct one. – nanny Jun 9 '15 at 20:36
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If you look in the documentation for #'format-time-string (try C-h f format-time-string), it explains %d and %e.

%d is the day of the month, zero-padded, %e is blank-padded.

But it also goes on to say:

Certain flags and modifiers are available with some format controls.
The flags are `_', `-', `^' and `#'.  For certain characters X,
%_X is like %X, but padded with blanks; %-X is like %X,
but without padding.

So let's try it!

(let ((time (date-to-time "June 9 12:00 2015")))
  (format-time-string "%-e %b %Y" time))

results in 9 Jun 2015, with no padding at all.

The flag - is easier than trimming the string, as it also works if you want to use a numeric value inside the string, for example:

(let ((time (date-to-time "June 9 12:00 2015")))
  (format-time-string "%-e/%-m/%Y" time))

results in 9/6/2015.

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  • Even a better answer, thanks for that! I must looking up the documentation more often. – ReneFroger Jun 9 '15 at 22:16
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The user nanny solved it with

(string-trim (format-time-string "%e %b %Y"))

I didn't wanted the %e becauses it added a space. But I never knew the function string-trim chops the spaces off.

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