Recognizing date inputs

[Jon Baer]

Hi,

(Im sure this was asked before but found nothing on markmail) ...  
Wondering if Solr can handle this on its own or if something needs to  
be written ... would like to handle recognizing date inputs to a  
search box for news articles, items such as "August 1","August 1st" or  
"08/01/2008" ... its a bit different than synonym like handling in  
that I have to transform the query to a specific field.  Any thoughts?

Thanks.

- Jon