User presentation of dates

[Nuutti Kotivuori <na...@iki.fi>]

I went around the code briefly - and found atleast three places where
dates were hobbled around for user display:

  'svn log' - dates are cut at the first '.' to keep them clean

  'svn info' - dates are printed in a non-standard format

  'svnlook' - dates are printed in the same ad-hoc format as above,
  but with a different implementation of the same thing

So it's quite clear that we want a function to format dates for user
display - one that takes in an apr_time_t, not a string.

But that raises the question of how we want the dates to be presented
to the user. There's two threads to this again.

First there is the issue of the actual format - is ISO-8601
human-friendly enough, or do we want to print a space instead of 'T'
as the delimiter. Or something completely different? Then what about
timezones - should the outputted dates be UTC always - or should they
be printed in a local timezone? I personally would wish for something
as close to ISO-8601 as possible, but your mileage might vary.

Then there is the issue of customization - do we want the user to be
able to specify the format timestamps show in? If yes, how does the
user specify the format? And here the biggest issue for me is that I
have no idea how the configuration file should be used in svn. Or
should this thing be done in a separate phase again - first a simple
user display format, then a customizable one past-1.0 or something?

Again, opinions and suggestions, please :)

-- Naked


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