Bug#473793: python-debian: add support for parsing removals.txt

[Stuart Prescott]

Hi Jakub,

On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 16:34:19 Jakub Wilk wrote:
> * Stuart Prescott <stuart at debian.org>, 2016-06-15, 00:02:
> >+    @property
> >+    def date(self):
> >+        """ a datetime object for the removal action """
> >+        try:
> >+            from dateutil.parser import parse
> >+        except ImportError:
> >+            warnings.warn("Install the python-dateutil or python3-dateutil
> >" +                    "package to process dates in package removals.") + 
> >          raise
> >+        return parse(self['date'])
> 
> There's a RFC 822 date parser in Python stdlib
> (email.utils.parsedate_tz), so if we jumped through a hops or two, we
> could avoid this extra dependency.

good thought -- that might indeed be better.

(and importing repeatedly inside a function isn't very pretty at all)

> Hmm, I wonder how other parts of python-debian parse dates...

I can't spot any other places, actually.

The changelog parser doesn't even try, leaving them as strings instead; I'm 
wary about trying to do too much in this code and wondering if I should not 
parse the date at all and leave it as a string for the consumer to parse if 
that is actually wanted.

> >+            self.assertEqual(r.bug, ['753912'])
> >+            self.assertEqual(r.also_wnpp, ['123456'])
> 
> Shouldn't bug numbers be integers?

I wondered about that too, and then wondered about (a) trying to do too much 
and (b) zero-padding in a few years.

The changelog parser does convert to integers, so perhaps this should too for 
consistency.

thanks for the feedback!

cheers
Stuart

-- 
Stuart Prescott    http://www.nanonanonano.net/   stuart at nanonanonano.net
Debian Developer   http://www.debian.org/         stuart at debian.org
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