179514 - CSV output should use consistent date/time format

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Bugzilla :: Query/Bug List, defect, P2)

Description

[Joel Peshkin]

When a buglist is requested in CSV format, it is presumably for further
machine-based processing.  Rather than listing dates such as ....

9:15:54
7/29/2002
10/16/2002
3:42:29
Sat 08:39
8/5/2002

It should use a consistent format recognizable as a date...

probably...

yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss

which seems to be a good way to dodge the 
d/m/y versus m/d/y i10n issue.

[note - I DID mark this trivial]

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

One way to do this is for the templates to take over the job of formatting
dates, which is now done in the CGI. This would probably be a good thing for
l10n reasons. 

Another way would be to ditch the "feature" of different date formats for recent
dates. It annoys me - I don't know about anyone else. We could use the standard
date format of YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (as suggested by the reporter) throughout.

Gerv

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

myk, dave: would removing the different time formats completely be acceptable,
or not?

Gerv

Comment 3

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

I prefer the "letting the templates do the formatting" approach, personally. 
Pass all the times in as unix timestamps :-)  Provide a few filters (one with
the date-sensitive formatting) for various default formats.

Comment 4

[Joel Peshkin]

Unloved bugs targetted for 2.18 but untouched since 9-15-2003 are being
retargeted to 2.20
If you plan to act on one immediately, go ahead and pull it back to 2.18.

Comment 5

[Rich Rivet]

Attachment: CSV output of bug listing

Comment 6

[Rich Rivet]

My CSV output (see attachment) has the date in both the Changed_Date and
Open_Date columns for some records and just the Time in those columns for other
records. Is this due to the same problems you described in earlier comments or
is it a separate bug? 

Rich

Comment 7

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

This bug has not been touched by its owner in over six months, even though it is
targeted to 2.20, for which the freeze is 10 days away. Unsetting the target
milestone, on the assumption that nobody is actually working on it or has any
plans to soon.

If you are the owner, and you plan to work on the bug, please give it a real
target milestone. If you are the owner, and you do *not* plan to work on it,
please reassign it to [e-mail] or a .bugs component owner. If you are
*anybody*, and you get this comment, and *you* plan to work on the bug, please
reassign it to yourself if you have the ability.

Comment 8

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Attachment: Patch v.1

This adds another special case for CSV. It's a reasonable fix, although long
term the template should decide what date format it wants.

Gerv

Comment 9

[Jason Remillard]

If you look at bug 82878. I have a patch that is waiting for a review. Part of
the patch pulls out the special date formatting for ICS and uses the
Template::Date plugin module. If you apply the patch and leave out the
list.rss.tmpl, you will be able to fix this problem just in the template. 

Comment 10

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

> This adds another special case for CSV. It's a reasonable fix, although long
> term the template should decide what date format it wants.

Agreed, with DiffDate being a filter the HTML template can apply.  In the
meantime, though, Jason's fix takes us most of the way there and makes your job
easier.  Making this depend on that bug, which has a patch that is just about done.

Comment 11

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Comment on attachment 176389 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch v.1

OK - I'll wait for that one.

Gerv

Comment 12

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Gerv, bug 82878 has landed.  We're freezing today, but if you cook up a patch
for this before the day is through I'll make sure to review/approve and check in
if necessary (i.e. if it's the middle of the night and you're asleep by the time
the review and approval come in).

Comment 13

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Attachment: Patch v.1

Myk: here it is. I think this is probably the best way to do it, given the way
the other patch was structured. (I'd have put the raw data in the original
column rather than a new one personally, but there you go.)

Gerv

Comment 14

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Comment on attachment 177566 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch v.1

r=myk

> I'd have put the raw data in the original column 
> rather than a new one personally, but there you go.

We should do that when we make DiffDate a template filter.  I filed bug 286488
on that.

Comment 15

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Fixed.

Checking in template/en/default/list/list.csv.tmpl;
/cvsroot/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/template/en/default/list/list.csv.tmpl,v  <--
 list.csv.tmpl
new revision: 1.4; previous revision: 1.3
done

Gerv