Using the datejs library (http://www.datejs.com/) to process natural language speech and return a specific date, and speak the result with the html 5 speech synthesis api. There seems to be a few bugs when combining relative dates ("today", "tomorrow") with times; all times seem to render as AM. Slight bug with the speech as it sometimes says "X…

natural-language-dates.html

<div class="row">
	<div class="col-md-4 col-sm-4 col-xs-12">
		<p>Click a date below:</p>
		<ul>
			<li><a href="#" title="Today" class="date-link">Today</a></li>
			<li><a href="#" title="Tomorrow" class="date-link">Tomorrow</a></li>
			<li><a href="#" title="Tomorrow at 7am" class="date-link">Tomorrow at 7:00 AM</a></li>
			<li><a href="#" title="Yesterday at 5pm" class="date-link">Yesterday at 5:00 PM</a><br/><small><em>This is broken, always displayed as 5am</em></small></li>
			<li><a href="#" title="Next Monday" class="date-link">Next Monday</a></li>
			<li><a href="#" title="March 30th" class="date-link">March 30th</a></li>
			<li><a href="#" title="March 30th at 8pm" class="date-link">March 30th at 8:00 PM</a></li>
			<li><a href="#" title="5 Days from Now" class="date-link">+ 5 days</a></li>
		</ul>
	</div><!-- .col -->
	<div class="col-md-8 col-sm-8 col-xs-12">
		<div class="panel panel-default">
			<div class="panel-heading">Natural Language Demo</div>
			<div class="panel-body">
				<p>Full JS date:<br/><input id="date-full-output" class="form-control"/></p>
				<p>Spoken date:<br/><input id="date-spoken-output" class="form-control"/></p>
			</div>
		</div>
	</div><!-- .col -->
</div><!-- .row -->

<script src="/assets/js/date.js"></script>
<script>
	"use strict";
	
	$(document).ready(function() {
		
		$("a.date-link").click(function(event){
			event.preventDefault();
			var relativeDate		= $(this).text();					// grab the text contained in the link
			processDate(relativeDate);									// process this text as a date
		});
			
		function processDate(myDate) {	
			if(myDate) {
				var fullDate		= Date.parse(myDate);				// parse the date with DateJS
				$("#date-full-output").val(fullDate);					// write the returned date object to the textfield
				
				var monthNames		= new Array(12);					// create array containing names of months
				monthNames[0]		= "January";
				monthNames[1]		= "February";
				monthNames[2]		= "March";
				monthNames[3]		= "April";
				monthNames[4]		= "May";
				monthNames[5]		= "June";
				monthNames[6]		= "July";
				monthNames[7]		= "August";
				monthNames[8]		= "September";
				monthNames[9]		= "October";
				monthNames[10]		= "November";
				monthNames[11]		= "December";
				
				var weekdayNames	= new Array(7);						// create array containing names of days
				weekdayNames[0]		= "Sunday";
				weekdayNames[1]		= "Monday";
				weekdayNames[2]		= "Tuesday";
				weekdayNames[3]		= "Wednesday";
				weekdayNames[4]		= "Thursday";
				weekdayNames[5]		= "Friday";
				weekdayNames[6]		= "Saturday";
			
				var hourNames		= new Array(13);					// create array containing names of hours
				hourNames[0]		= "twelve";							// we need 'twelve' here to account for 'midnight' (hour 0)
				hourNames[1]		= "one";
				hourNames[2]		= "two";
				hourNames[3]		= "three";
				hourNames[4]		= "four";
				hourNames[5]		= "five";
				hourNames[6]		= "six";
				hourNames[7]		= "seven";
				hourNames[8]		= "eight";
				hourNames[9]		= "nine";
				hourNames[10]		= "ten";
				hourNames[11]		= "eleven";
				hourNames[12]		= "twelve";
				
				var ordinal			= "";
				var dayNum			= fullDate.getDay();				// get day number of month
				if(dayNum > 3 && dayNum < 21) {							// determine correct ordinal based on day of month
					ordinal			= "th";
				}
				switch (dayNum % 10) {
					case 1:			ordinal = "st";
					case 2:			ordinal = "nd";
					case 3:			ordinal = "rd";
					default:		ordinal = "th";
				}
				
				var spokenDate		= weekdayNames[fullDate.getDay()] + ", " + monthNames[fullDate.getMonth()] + " " + fullDate.getDate() + ordinal + ", " + fullDate.getFullYear();		// build a speakable date
				$("#date-spoken-output").val(spokenDate);				// write the spoken date string to the textfield
				speakText(spokenDate);
				
			} else {
				$("#date-output").text('Please choose a date.');
			}
		}
		
		// function to speak a response
		var speakText = function(response) {
			
			// setup synthesis
			var msg = new SpeechSynthesisUtterance();
			var voices = window.speechSynthesis.getVoices();
			msg.voice = voices[2];					// Note: some voices don't support altering params
			msg.voiceURI = 'native';
			msg.volume = 1;							// 0 to 1
			msg.rate = 1;							// 0.1 to 10
			msg.pitch = 2;							// 0 to 2
			msg.text = response;
			msg.lang = 'en-US';
			
			speechSynthesis.speak(msg);
		}
	});
</script>