[jira] [Created] (COMDEV-203) Timezone issues with release dates

["Sebb (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

Sebb created COMDEV-203:
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             Summary: Timezone issues with release dates
                 Key: COMDEV-203
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COMDEV-203
             Project: Community Development
          Issue Type: Bug
          Components: Reporter Tool
            Reporter: Sebb


Release dates are stored as seconds since the epoch in the data/release/committe.json files. In theory all the dates should convert to midnight UTC on the release date.

If dates are obtained from JIRA, they are converted using the Python method 
time.mktime() which uses the local timezone. This is done on the reporter.a.o host, which is currently running UTC. However the host was originally set up in a different timezone, so some of the dates don't convert to midnight. It should have used calendar.gmtime() instead.

If the dates are obtained from the user, then the YYYY-MM-DD string is converted using Javascript using (new Date(yyyy,mm,dd)).getTime() which assumes the local timezone. The converted value is passed back as an integer to the python script. It should use Date.UTC(yyyy,mm,dd) instead. Or it could pass back the date string for conversion by the Python code.

It's easy enough to fix new dates going forward.
However there are existing dates that will need correction.

The dates are all converted assuming a local time of midnight, so when they are converted back again, the local time offset will show up as a number of hours since midnight. This can be used to adjust the value.



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