[Duplicity-talk] Usability annoyance

[Ken Bass]

Maybe I am doing something incorrect, but when listing collections (such 
as collection-status), duplicity prints out something like:

   Chain start time: Thu Dec 29 19:08:30 2011
   Chain end time: Thu Dec 29 19:08:30 2011
   Number of contained backup sets: 1
   Total number of contained volumes: 1
   Type of backup set:                            Time:           Num 
volumes:
                   Full         Thu Dec 29 19:08:30 2011              
             1

However, when restoring (using the -t, --restore-time, --time) you 
cannot cut/paste that date. Instead you need to perform conversion on 
the date.
I would like to suggest/propose that the listings be changed so that 
they print the 'w3' date.

I could either be changed outright to print
                Full         20111230T000830Z                          1

Or perhaps added to existing output such as

   Chain start time: Thu Dec 29 19:08:30 2011
   Chain end time: Thu Dec 29 19:08:30 2011
   Number of contained backup sets: 1
   Total number of contained volumes: 1
    Type of backup set:                                                
Time:                        Num volumes:
                   Full          Thu Dec 29 19:08:30 2011 
(20111230T000830Z)                       1

I wasn't sure if anyone relies on parsing that output and whether the 
change should be enabled with some command line option
and not sure what to call it. I thought about '--show-w3-time', but 
without the hyphens, is it really a W3 time format? It seems to be
consistent with how the files are named. And I think showing this value 
rather than unix time (secs since epoch) relates
back to the dataset in a more logical manner.

Comments? I prefer adding the value in peren option myself and don't 
think there needs to be an option.
With the above change, someone can pick out the exact backup set they 
wish to restore and copy/paste the w3 time in the
parens.


Here is the patch to collections.py
391c391
<         set_schema = "%20s   %50s   %12s"
---
>         set_schema = "%20s   %30s   %15s"
408c408
<             l.append(set_schema % (type, dup_time.timetopretty(time)+" 
("+dup_time.timetostring(time)+")", len(s)))
---
>             l.append(set_schema % (type, dup_time.timetopretty(time), 
len(s)))