Validating opening hours format

Question

I need to validate from my Ruby app the format of the openingHours field used by Open Street Map. I found this validator http://openingh.openstreetmap.de/evaluation_tool/ but I was wondering if there was a gem, REST API or at least a known regex to validate the format expected by them.

This is an example of the opening hours format:

Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa 10:00-18:00 Su 12:00-17:00

Answer 1

The example from your question is wrong, a semicolon is missing. The correct format is:

Mo,Tu,We,Th,Fr,Sa 10:00-18:00; Su 12:00-17:00

or in short:

Mo-Sa 10:00-18:00; Su 12:00-17:00.

I don't think a regex can handle this complex format. You will need a real parser. The OSM wiki lists several implementations:

• Key:opening_hours#Implementation
• Key:opening_hours#Code