Bug#969605: snapshot.debian.org: please make it possible to figure out which timestamp one is currently using

[Johannes 'josch' Schauer <josch@debian.org>]

Package: snapshot.debian.org
Severity: wishlist

Hi,

this wishlist bug was made in the context of the development of
debbisect: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/devscripts/-/merge_requests/177/

Currently it is possible to pass an arbitrary timestamp of the form
%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ in a snapshot.d.o URL and one will still get some
results. This is cool but it would be nice if there was a way to find
out which snapshot timestamp one actually ended up using. Given two
timestamps X and Y which are closer together than six hours, it is
currently very hard to determine (one would have to download and compare
Packages and Sources files) whether one is looking at the same snapshot
or different snapshots.

In the context of debbisect, knowing the precise timestamp one is
currently investigating would help in determining which snapshot to
investigate next.

This wishlist bug could either be solved by

 - documenting how an arbitrary date is turned into a snapshot timestamp
   (this would probably require a machine readable list of all snapshot
   timestamps -- see #969603) or by
 - providing an API function which turns an arbitrary date into a
   snapshot timestamp

Thanks!

cheers, josch