From phil@telemetry-investments.com Mon Dec 20 06:32:22 2004
Received: from ti41.telemetry-investments.com (209-166-240-202.cust.walrus.com
	[209.166.240.202])
	by underdog.stansell.org (8.13.2/8.13.2) with ESMTP id iBKEWFNZ005951
	for <users@conserver.com>; Mon, 20 Dec 2004 06:32:21 -0800 (PST)
Received: from ti50.telemetry-investments.com (ti50 [192.168.8.50])
	by ti41.telemetry-investments.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8620110102
	for <users@conserver.com>; Mon, 20 Dec 2004 09:32:13 -0500 (EST)
Received: by ti50.telemetry-investments.com (Postfix, from userid 356)
	id 7D2B44038; Mon, 20 Dec 2004 09:32:13 -0500 (EST)
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 09:32:13 -0500
From: "Philip J. Hollenback" <phil@telemetry-investments.com>
To: users@conserver.com
Message-ID: <20041220143213.GR24404@telemetry-investments.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i
X-Spam-Score: -4.901 () BAYES_00
X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.39
Subject: Is there interest in a more customizable timestamp?
X-BeenThere: users@conserver.com
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
Precedence: list
List-Id: Conserver Users <users.conserver.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.conserver.com/mailman/listinfo/users>,
	<mailto:users-request@conserver.com?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://www.conserver.com/pipermail/users>
List-Post: <mailto:users@conserver.com>
List-Help: <mailto:users-request@conserver.com?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www.conserver.com/mailman/listinfo/users>,
	<mailto:users-request@conserver.com?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 14:32:23 -0000

If you set conserver to add a timestamp to each line of the log file,
the output looks like this:

[Mon Dec 20 14:46:56 PST 2004] blah blah blah

Which is ok, but kind of verbose.  It would be nice if this was more
customizable.  For example, we would like to see a more compact
representation that worked more like syslog, i.e.:

Dec 20 14:46:56: blah blah blah

or maybe this:

041220 14:46:56: blah blah blah


So at this point we are thinking about extending the timestamp
functionality with full strftime time specifications.  That way you
could choose just about any timestamp formatting you wanted.

Is this something others are interested in?

Thanks,
P.

-- 
Philip J. Hollenback
Telemetry Investments
phollenback@telemetry-investments.com
From woods@building.weird.com Mon Dec 20 11:56:20 2004
Received: from building.weird.com (building.weird.com [204.92.254.24])
	by underdog.stansell.org (8.13.2/8.13.2) with ESMTP id iBKJuBa3019068
	for <users@conserver.com>; Mon, 20 Dec 2004 11:56:16 -0800 (PST)
Received: from localhost (3522 bytes) by building.weird.com
	via sendmail with STDIO (sender: <woods>) (ident <woods> using UNIX)
	id <m1CgTdY-0024feC@building.weird.com> for <users@conserver.com>;
	(dest:remote)(R=bind_hosts)(T=inet_zone_bind_smtp)
	Mon, 20 Dec 2004 14:56:08 -0500 (EST)
	(Smail-3.2.0.121-Pre 2004-Aug-27 #1 built 2004-Dec-14)
Message-Id: <m1CgTdY-0024feC@building.weird.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 14:56:08 -0500 (EST)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Face: ; j3Eth2XV8h1Yfu<eXd9JL+"t;
	iT8?{X]Fjm`Qb]>*uL{<:dQ$#E[DB0gemGZJ"J#4fH*][ lz;
	@-iwMv_u\6uIEKR0KY"=MzoQH#CrqBN`nG_5B@rrM8,f~Gr&h5a\=<t0loVf0$}bP=]i3OMh"n_
	_@m4/,
	~2`V=(-9LyW.)'`@E_fE^<4y7)BIe`A''/j-Y#gDNZERh%CCij'q-NA4F<|yjznEhd7=l^xH
	2.qD3o0IanGHERTW+z$G
From: "Greg A. Woods" <woods@weird.com>
To: "Philip J. Hollenback" <phil@telemetry-investments.com>
In-Reply-To: <20041220143213.GR24404@telemetry-investments.com>
References: <20041220143213.GR24404@telemetry-investments.com>
X-Mailer: VM 7.19 under Emacs 21.3.1
Organization: Planix, Inc.; Toronto, Ontario; Canada
X-Spam-Score: -4.901 () BAYES_00
X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.39
Cc: ConServer User's Mailing List <users@conserver.com>
Subject: Re: Is there interest in a more customizable timestamp?
X-BeenThere: users@conserver.com
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
Precedence: list
Reply-To: ConServer User's Mailing List <users@conserver.com>
List-Id: Conserver Users <users.conserver.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.conserver.com/mailman/listinfo/users>,
	<mailto:users-request@conserver.com?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://www.conserver.com/pipermail/users>
List-Post: <mailto:users@conserver.com>
List-Help: <mailto:users-request@conserver.com?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www.conserver.com/mailman/listinfo/users>,
	<mailto:users-request@conserver.com?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 19:56:22 -0000

[ On Monday, December 20, 2004 at 09:32:13 (-0500), Philip J. Hollenback wrote: ]
> Subject: Is there interest in a more customizable timestamp?
>
> If you set conserver to add a timestamp to each line of the log file,
> the output looks like this:
> 
> [Mon Dec 20 14:46:56 PST 2004] blah blah blah
> 
> Which is ok, but kind of verbose.  It would be nice if this was more
> customizable.

That looks an awful lot like the standard output of ctime(3), and no
doubt it is.

For any C or Unix program that's about the most standard format for an
ASCII timestamp that could ever be possible.

>  For example, we would like to see a more compact
> representation that worked more like syslog, i.e.:

Well, since log files (or snippets from them) can stick around for much
longer than you might imagine I would very strongly suggest that you do
not ever want to drop the full year from the timestamp.

I think the only other form of timestamp that would be reasonable would
be a proper, truly standard, ISO 8601 format timestamp, i.e. like this:

	YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS

The most compact complete form allowed by ISO 8601, though the least
human friendly, is:

	YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS

(where the "T" is a literal "T" character in the ISO-8851 character set,
and the rest are replaced by the appropriate digits of course)

The times of course _should_ be given in UTC, and that _should_ be
specified in the timestamp by appending a capital letter "Z".  That way
they cannot be confused when DST changes get in the way, nor will they
be confused should a system be used by users who are not all in the same
timezone (which is very common these days, even for "conserver" users!).

However at minimum the ISO standard timezone offset specification should
be appended to avoid confusion (e.g. "+HH:MM" or "-HH:MM" , or just
"+HH" or "-HH")

So, for a complete example the time as I type this is:

	2004-12-20 14:51:41-05

or in UTC:

	2004-12-20 19:51:41Z

> So at this point we are thinking about extending the timestamp
> functionality with full strftime time specifications.

I think that would be a really bad thing to do.  K.I.S.S.

Pick a standard, be complete, and stick to it universally.

For what it's worth I think the ctime(3) output we now use is quite
sufficient.  These log entries don't need to be parsed and hopefully
they're already in the correct order, and human readabilty and avoidance
of confusion factors is parmount.

-- 
						Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098                  VE3TCP            RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>          Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>