taskdata

a taskwarrior utility program to directly manipulate task *.data files

status: imaginary

Taskwarrior (http://taskwarrior.org) users have long asked questions about ID#s changing or not changing, and about archiving tasks that are deleted, to another file. This imaginary program seeks to address this sort of action, and adds a few as well, bu directly manipulating the contents and sequence of the core taskdata files; pending.data, completed.data, undo.data and backlog.data. This is not to be taken lightly! Manipulating the core data set presents a risk of data-loss, and threatens to confuse the task-sync and undo logic..

but STILL I'd like go ahead and describe this imaginary program as though the data-integrity and task-sync/undo issues were all taken care of. For the purposes of discussion, please put those concerns on hold, and imagine;

usage:

  taskdata [filter] command [target|sort-order]

commands;
  backup [target-file]              (copies all 4 data files +.taskrc to a dated-taskdata.gz (or .zip) file)
  revert [source-file]              (overwrites taskdata files with dated-taskdate.gz (defaults to newest))
  check [target-file]               (tests data files for errors, format compliance, dupe-uuids, etc)
  < filter > archive [target-file]  (matching tasks removed from completed.data and appended to target-file)
  < filter > move [target-file]     (matching tasks removed from pending.data and appended to target-file)
  < filter > delete                 (deletes matching tasks from completed.data)
  sort [sort-field(s)]              (sort lines in pending.data, according to task sort-field(s))
  
config options (set in script or config file);
  backup_required=yes/no            (whether a date.taskdata.gz file must be present, before proceding)
  backup_frequency=N                (sets the maximum number of days between backups (0 = every time, auto)
  backup_keep=N                     (sets the number of backup files to keep, (0 = all)
  backup_name=YYYY_MM_DD_taskdata.gz (sets the default backup name template (begins with valid date fmt))
  backup_target_dir=~/path          (sets the default backup folder)
  archive_target=~/path/file.data   (sets default archive target file)
  move_target=~/path/file.data      (sets default move target file)
  sort_default=field1-,field2+      (sets default sort order, defined like tasks report.X.sort= config)

The taskdata command should;

generate ample feedback and confirmational prompts (y/n)
always check file format integrity and abort without changes if any errors are found
add or remove entries to backlog.data and undo.data, to reconcile the changes.

linuxcaffe/taskdata

taskdata