Bug#980825: debian-policy: Historical sign off dates in d/changelog and "single digit" day of the month

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Fri, 2021-01-22 at 22:15:24 +0100, Niels Thykier wrote:
> Package: debian-policy
> Version: 4.5.0.0
> Severity: minor
> 
> This is a bit of a nit pick, but I think it is a special case worth
> mentioning in Policy.
> 
> I am basing this on
> https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html#debian-changelog-debian-changelog
> where the date format of the changelog signoff line is described as:
> 
> 
> > The date has the following format 7 (compatible and with the same semantics of RFC 2822 and RFC 5322):
> > 
> > day-of-week, dd month yyyy hh:mm:ss +zzzz
> > 
> > where:
> > 
> >     day-of-week is one of: Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun
> > 
> >     dd is a one- or two-digit day of the month (01-31)
> > [...]
> 
> I find that "single-digit day" is a bit underspecified here in.
> Basically there are two options, either the leading zero is replaced
> with a leading space or the leading zero is simply omitted.
> 
> Sadly, neither RFC 2822 nor RFC 5322 are helpful in clearing this up as
> they both assume "two-digit" days.
> 
> My understanding is that the reason for "single-digit" days is to
> support historical changelogs, where Debian omitted the leading zero.
> The samples I have found[1], the leading zero is replaced with a single
> space as in:
> 
> >  -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Thu,  3 Dec 1998 23:31:56 -0800
> 
> 
> 
> This is relatively prevalent.  As an (un)scientific example, this
> alternative variant accounts for:
> 
>  * ~21% of all signoff dates in debhelper (202/927)
>  * ~10% of all signoff dates in apt (49/480)
> 
> 
> I applaud policy for highlighting the correct and preferred example, so
> I propose that we restrain this amendment to a footnote (or another note
> of equal low importance) that informs the reader that this alternative
> format may be found in older changelog entries and that this variant is
> still accepted but that the two-digit format with leading zero should be
> preferred in every new entry.

Isn't this report a duplicate of #971977?

(I clarified the other report in deb-changelog(5) with
<https://git.dpkg.org/cgit/dpkg/dpkg.git/commit/?id=05264f16e69d34b78700fccddc6f9950e75a8295>.)

Thanks,
Guillem