Re: [PATCH 1/8] Export parse_date_basic() to convert a date string to timestamp

Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

approxidate() is not appropriate for reading machine-written dates
because it guesses instead of erroring out on malformed dates.
parse_date() is less convenient since it returns its output as a
string.  So export the underlying function that writes a timestamp.

While at it, change the return value to match the usual convention:
return 0 for success and -1 for failure.

Junio: I think this should be ejected from the series as an
independently useful cleanup.

Currently parse_date_toffset() is exported but not declared anywhere.
This patch gives it a more predictable API and adds a declaration.

Ram: thanks for the reminder.