On 11/04/2009 03:52 PM, Rob Crittenden wrote:
John Dennis wrote:
In parameters.py we define a GeneralizedTime object to be used as an
XMLRPC parameter. Why?
GeneralizedTime isn't defined as an XML-RPC paramter, just an IPA one
and XML-RPC just comes along for the ride. We only needed support for
RFC 4517.
Exactly, that's the problem. GeneralizedTime is not known to anybody who
speaks XMLRPC, but iso8601 is known to anybody who does speak XMLRPC,
and since GeneralizedTime is a subset of iso8601 anybody requiring
GeneralizeTime can convert to GeneralizedTime from iso8601. Whenever
possible we should stay within the definitions of the specifications,
since XMLRPC already has a type for iso8601 there is no need to
introduce a private type into XMLRPC which would be known only to select
parties.
* XMLRPC defines the dateTime.iso8601 parameter value type for passing
date/time information
* Python has good support for date/time processing in it's datetime
module
* Python's xmlrpclib supports both xmlrpclib.DateTime and
datetime.datetime objects.
* Python's xmlrpclib can be configured to use datetime.datetime
objects intead of xmlrpclib.DateTime objects if you pass
use_datetime=True when invoking xmlrpclib.loads(), however we don't do
that. Why?
Never needed dates.
This has nothing to do with needing dates, rather it's an issue of which
date/time object xmlrpclib will use. xmlrpclib apparently was written
prior to the introduction of datetime.datetime so it created its own
date/time type called DateTime. The introduction of datetime.datetime
should supersede xmlrpclib.DateTime but it was left as the default for
backwards compatibility. We have no need for that backward
compatibility, we should be representing date/time information in
Python's native datetime.datetime object.
* ISO 8601 is an internet standard for passing date time information
between cooperating network entities. However GeneralizedTime is only
valid in a subset of binary protocols (primarily LDAP and PKI)
And it is LDAP we end up speaking.
No, our API is not speaking native LDAP, we're providing an abstraction
layer over LDAP.
Given that ISO 8601 is the preferred standard, that's it is directly
supported by XMLRPC, is compatible with datetime.datetime and the fact
datetime.datetime has excellent support in Python shouldn't we be
using datetime.datetime for all our date/time information and only
convert to and from GeneralizedTime for the subset of interfaces which
require GeneralizedTime?
This could always be revisited but at the time we didn't need full-blown
support and in fact don't want timezone information.
datetime.datetime can be use with and without timezone information. We
probably want to establish a convention that all date/time information
is exchanged in UTC (effectively the same thing as omitting timezone
information, if that's what you meant). datetime.datetime handles UTC
trivially.
--
John Dennis <jden...@redhat.com>
Looking to carve out IT costs?
www.redhat.com/carveoutcosts/
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