A neat way to specify calendars is to give a algebraic specification. Currently, tZaman only supports partial algebraic specification. To more fully support algebraic specification, we have developed a list of operators that should be suppported. The algebraic operators list includes an XML specification for each operator. An example of how these operations would be used to specify the Gregorian calendar is available. Finally, we have also developed an XML Schema to validate the extended calendar algebra.

Kyriacos Pavlou is specifying in denotational semantics and as a translator in Java these algebraic operators. When finished, a calendar could be expressed either with the partial algebraic specification, which requires the developer to also supply a Java class file, or with the full algebraic specification, from which the (optimized) Java is generated automatically, transparently to the application that loads the calendar.

This work builds up prior work by Jessica Miller and Haitao Liu