[PATCH] export: introduce 'Unix Date' header with the date spelled out

Greg Ward greg at gerg.ca
Fri Feb 8 16:23:21 CST 2013


On 08 February 2013, Mads Kiilerich said:
> # HG changeset patch
> # User Mads Kiilerich <mads at kiilerich.com>
> # Date 1360346908 -3600
> # Node ID 990ae56ef86ea6b2357f022acc8e8e7c72f9ecc8
> # Parent  5ad1b38d9eb9f7f7ecdb9a0281178070837c47d7
> export: introduce 'Unix Date' header with the date spelled out
> 
> 'export' is the official export format and used by patchbomb, but it will only
> include date as a timestamp that most humans might find it hard to relate to.
> It is very convenient when reviewing a patch to be able to see what timestamp
> the patch will end up with.
> 
> This patch will introduce a new 'Unix Date' header. Tools parsing headers
> should just ignore this 'unknown' line.

Like the feature. Not so keen on the name. Random thoughts...

    English date
    Human date
    Readable date
    Text date
    RFC822 date

Also, that date format is ... weird, because the time comes between
the day and the year. I would prefer either something like ISO format

  1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000

or something closer to traditional English-language date formatting:

  Thu Jan 01 1970 00:00:00 +0000

ISO format has many advantages, not least the fact that the name is
obvious:

  # HG changeset patch
  # User test
  # Date 0 0
  # ISO Date 1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000
  # Node ID e63c23eaa88ae77967edcf4ea194d31167c478b0

We just have to teach the world to memorize 01 = January, 02 =
February, etc. ;-)

       Greg
-- 
Greg Ward                            http://www.gerg.ca
<greg at gerg.ca>                       @gergdotca


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