Garth's test of PyDS 16.4.2003

He's fast!

I love CVS.

Tracking down rendering error

Background thread exception exceptions.ValueError: time data did not match format
D:\Python22\Lib\site-packages\PyDS\Tool.py[763] in thunk
D:\Python22\Lib\site-packages\PyDS\WeblogTool.py[165] in _initthread
D:\Python22\Lib\site-packages\PyDS\WeblogTool.py[864] in renderTimeframeOnline
D:\Python22\Lib\site-packages\PyDS\Tool.py[513] in renderPage [46] in respond
D:\Python22\Lib\site-packages\PyDS\Tool.py [1386] in getRSSNewestDate
D:\Python22\Lib\site-packages\PyDS\MacrosTool.py[509] in parseTodayFull
D:\Python22\Lib\site-packages\PyDS\strptime.py[448] in strptime

Further investigation reveals that PyDS spends a lot of time converting time tuples to strings and back. And, the reason I'm having trouble with some rendering is that the renderer is bombing out. Which might also explain why I have no RSS.

Hacking in some cheaty code

def parseTodayFull(self, date):
    parseFormat = '%a, %d %h %Y %H:%M:%S GMT'
    try: 
        return calendar.timegm(strptime(date, parseFormat))
    except ValueError: 
        raise ValueError, 'time data "%s" did not match format "%s"' % (
            date, parseFormat)

reveals:

Background thread exception exceptions.ValueError: time data "Wed, 16 2003 03:57:52 GMT" did not match format "%a, %d %h %Y %H:%M:%S GMT"

I'm bewildered at the design choice. Storing the timestamps as strings is very fragile. PyDS should store timestamps as time tuples or seconds since epoch.

If PyDS must, for whatever reason, store strings, I'd recommend a standard format. For the time being, though, this diff will put the month back and fix RSS as a side-effect.

Where's the beef?

Getting ahead of PyDS' upstreaming

I've tried asking the Upstreaming tool to fix it, but nothing seems to be happening. There's no mention in Events of that request having been made, either.

Later: after restarting, asking for an upstream, compensating for an upstream cache, and taking the Draft setting off the story, it's getting there. I'm still not sure what stopped upstreaming, but I'm hoping that waiting another minute or two will get the story up there.

RSS

[Aah, it was caused by the exception...]

FAST

One thing I'll say about PyDS: it's fast. Given that it's doing much the same as Radio is doing on my real blog, I'm newly bemused at Radio's CPU hunger.

reStructuredText handling bug