Debian Bug report logs -
#9353
822-date is obsolete
Reported by: Galen Hazelwood <galenh@micron.net>
Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 18:33:03 UTC
Severity: normal
Found in version 1.4.0.12
Done: Wichert Akkerman <wichert@wiggy.net>
Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.
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Report forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
:
Bug#9353
; Package dpkg
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Acknowledgement sent to Galen Hazelwood <galenh@micron.net>
:
New bug report received and forwarded. Copy sent to Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):
Package: dpkg
Version: 1.4.0.12
822-date was originally written as a hack due to the fact that the GNU
date command didn't support RFC-822 dates. This support was added later
(date -R), and this should probably be used instead.
Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
:
Bug#9353
; Package dpkg
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Acknowledgement sent to Klee Dienes <klee@sauron.fashion-technology.com>
:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Message #10 received at 9353@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):
> 822-date was originally written as a hack due to the fact that the GNU
> date command didn't support RFC-822 dates. This support was added later
> (date -R), and this should probably be used instead.
I believe that it is important to make dpkg work well outside of the
context of a complete Debian system, so that we can promote it as a
distribution-independent format for a number of unix and linux
distributions besides the various flavors of Debian.
We don't currently do a very good job of this; I'm working on making
it better. Given this outlook, though, I'm reluctant to make any
change that reduces the portability of the dpkg tools (in this case,
by requiring a newer version of GNU date). 822-date is already
written, depends only on Perl, and is inexpensive to distribute.
I do agree, though, that it might be a good idea to move 822-date to
$libexecdir (/usr/lib/dpkg/822-date in Debian).
Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
:
Bug#9353
; Package dpkg
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Acknowledgement sent to Michael Alan Dorman <mdorman@calder.med.miami.edu>
:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Message #15 received at 9353@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):
Klee Dienes <klee@sauron.fashion-technology.com> writes:
> 822-date is already written, depends only on Perl, and is
> inexpensive to distribute.
As part of my rewrite-in-anger of the dpkg-* perl scripts, I've moved
822-date out into a perl module. Since at this point it seems that
all the programs that are using are, in fact, perl scripts themselves,
this should be a win in that we will no longer be spawning unnecessary
additional processes.
If necessary, I can also set the package up so that if it's called as
a program, it will perform as the old one did, and then it can just be
linked to the old name. Would this seem sensible?
Mike.
--
Michael Alan Dorman Head of Systems
mdorman@calder.med.miami.edu Louis Calder Memorial Library
(305) 243-5530 University of Miami School of Medicine
Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
:
Bug#9353
; Package dpkg
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Acknowledgement sent to Klee Dienes <klee@mit.edu>
:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Message #20 received at 9353@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):
Michael Alan Dorman <mdorman@calder.med.miami.edu>:
> If necessary, I can also set the package up so that if it's called as
> a program, it will perform as the old one did, and then it can just be
> linked to the old name. Would this seem sensible?
Sounds ideal. We'll need to have 822-date available as a separate
binary, as it's used by debian-changelog-mode as well as by the
various perl scripts.
Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Klee Dienes and Ian Jackson <dpkg-maint@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
:
Bug#9353
; Package dpkg
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Acknowledgement sent to Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Klee Dienes and Ian Jackson <dpkg-maint@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Message #25 received at 9353@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):
Galen Hazelwood writes ("Re: Bug#9357: `date -R' not documented (and no corresponding % ?)"):
> Looks like I spoke too soon about adding a %R escape to date. Date uses
> strftime(3) to convert the string. Adding %R means hacking strftime.
> Hacking strftime means hacking glibc. This is something I'm not going
> to do lightly.
>
> Ian, is there any overriding reason why there has to be a specific
> escape for the rfc-822 syntax? Can you imagine a scenario in which the
> -R flag or the explicitly specified version "%a, %_d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z"
> would be inadequate? This is an honest question--I don't want to go
> patching the library without a pretty good reason.
I see you've closed the bug, which is fine by me. Would it be
possible, though, to have the -R option produce the format with the
timezone in parentheses ? This ought to be encouraged :-).
In the meantime dpkg should be changed to have an 822-date which is
just a wrapper for the `date' command with an appropriate string, and
a dependency on the appropriate version of <foo>utils.
Thanks,
Ian.
-chiark:~> date +"%a, %e %b %Y %T %z (%Z)"
Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:41:21 +0100 (BST)
-chiark:~> date -R
Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:41:36 +0100
-chiark:~>
Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Dpkg Development <debian-dpkg@lists.debian.org>, dpkg@packages.qa.debian.org
:
Bug#9353
; Package dpkg
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Acknowledgement sent to Thomas Hood <jdthood@yahoo.co.uk>
:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Dpkg Development <debian-dpkg@lists.debian.org>, dpkg@packages.qa.debian.org
.
(full text, mbox, link).
Message #30 received at 9353@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):
Report 9353, dating from 1997, concerns /usr/bin/822-date.
(It is no longer part of dpkg. It is now part of dpkg-dev.)
The original request was to eliminate it and use
date -R instead. The two do seem to produce similar results:
jdthood@thanatos:~$ 822-date
Sun, 6 Oct 2002 10:09:51 +0200
jdthood@thanatos:~$ date -R
Sun, 06 Oct 2002 10:09:53 +0200
However, Klee Dienes wrote that he did not wish to make dpkg
depend on the date command. In Debian it is part of shellutils,
which is Essential: yes. However, he was concerned about
portability of dpkg to other distros.
What is the current view? If porting to date -R is planned,
this report can be set to severity wishlist. Otherwise this
report can be closed.
--
Thomas Hood
Reply sent to Wichert Akkerman <wichert@wiggy.net>
:
You have taken responsibility.
(full text, mbox, link).
Notification sent to Galen Hazelwood <galenh@micron.net>
:
Bug acknowledged by developer.
(full text, mbox, link).
Message #35 received at 9353-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):
Previously Thomas Hood wrote:
> What is the current view? If porting to date -R is planned,
> this report can be set to severity wishlist. Otherwise this
> report can be closed.
Lets close it. It is more important to have dpkg be portable.
Wichert.
--
_________________________________________________________________
/wichert@wiggy.net This space intentionally left occupied \
| wichert@deephackmode.org http://www.wiggy.net/ |
| 1024D/2FA3BC2D 576E 100B 518D 2F16 36B0 2805 3CB8 9250 2FA3 BC2D |
Message #36 received at 9353-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):
In order to maintain portability, dpkg will not be changed
to depend on the date command.
--
Thomas
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