Re: [ANNOUNCE] util-linux v2.35

[Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>]

On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 01:38:37PM -0300, Carlos Santos wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 1:13 PM Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 11:59:59AM -0500, J William Piggott wrote:
> > > You do realize that I had to heavily modify that file to remove its
> > > gnulib dependencies (because you said no to gnulib). If I recall
> >
> > I know, this is why we keep it in the tree (and thanks for all the
> > work!).
> >
> > > correctly I had newer and older versions to chose from and picked that
> > > one due to it having the most bugs fixed while still being practical to
> > > strip its gnulib dependence.
> > >
> > > The reasons for making the change were:
> > >  * remove hwclock's dependence on date(1)
> > >  * remove an insecure call to date(1)
> > >  * I thought there would be to many complaints if the accepted input
> > >    date formats were changed
> > >
> > > As to the last bullet point; personally I think having the --date option
> > > accept every date syntax know to history is nonsense.
> >
> > Yes, I agree it's probably overkill.
> >
> > > Or you could just use the existing utillinux date parser.
> >
> > This is what I have implemented for --disable-hwclock-gplv3 to have
> > anything ASAP for the next 2.35.1 update... Maybe we can make it the
> > default for the next release v2.36 and later remove the gnulib code at
> > all.
> >
> > > The question is, do you want to deal with any pushback for
> > > changing the long established accepted --date formats?
> >
> > IMHO the existing utillinux date parser is good enough, but I have no
> > clue how people use --date.
> 
> This is a bit disturbing. People should know in advance what date/time
> formats hwclock supports. They should be described in the man page, at

man hwclock: "This option is capable of understanding many time and
date formats." :-) 

It was for decade exec(date), so it supports almost whatever and it's 
reason why we have ported the code from gnulib to uti-linux. 

The question is if we really need to support it. Maybe it's time to
make it more restricted and rely only on simple format like
'2525-08-14 07:11:05'.

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com