[Remind-Fans] allow *1 repeat without any start date

[Dianne Skoll]

On Wed, 2 Mar 2022 01:44:38 -0500
"Ian! D. Allen via Remind-fans" <remind-fans at lists.skoll.ca> wrote:

>     REM MSG works fine
>     REM UNTIL Dec 31 2022 MSG works fine

>     REM *1 MSG not allowed
>     REM *1 UNTIL Dec 31 2022 MSG not allowed
>     REM THROUGH Dec 31 2022 MSG not allowed
> "Must fully specify date to use repeat factor"

Well, that's how the grammar of Remind works.  A *N requires a start date,
and THROUGH YYYY-MM-DD is just syntactic sugar for *1 UNTIL YYYY-MM-DD

> If something repeats every day from now on, surely remind doesn't
> need me to give it some random starting day to use a "*1" repeat
> factor?

In theory, no, but adding this special case would complicate the code
and I don't think it's worth doing because you can easily write the
reminders without the *1.

We'd also have to disallow partal date specifications because it's not
clear to me how to interpret something like:

      REM February *1 MSG huh?

The *N syntax should really be read as:  "Every N days from the starting
date that I gave you" and not "Every N days"


Regards,

Dianne.