Time zone confusion and implementation hints

[Jonathan Leffler]

On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 1:34 PM, Bill Seymour <stdbill.h at pobox.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Yves Goergen
> <nospam.list at unclassified.de> wrote:
> > On 02.07.2010 20:21 CE(S)T, Bill Seymour wrote:
> >> Attached is my understanding of the format of the binaries.
> >
> > Ehm, where's the time zone name? Does the binary file only contain a
> > single time zone?
>
> Yes, and the time zone name is the file name.  The '/' characters
> in the time zone name are Unix directory separators.  My understanding
> is that the directory where all the tz binaries reside can be found in
> some environment variable...I'm not sure which one, but I imagine
> others can tell you.
>
> In that directory, there will be, for example, a subdirectory named
> "Pacific", and in that subdirectory, there will be a file named
> "Honolulu".  That's the time zone binary for Hawaii.
>
> If a time zone name has three elements, that just indicates
> another level of subdirectories.  For example, America has
> four subdirectories, Argentina, Indiana, Kentucky, and
> North_Dakota.  North_Dakota contains two files, Center
> and New_Salem.
>
> TZ gurus:  did I get all that right?
>
>
Yes - that is the basic structure as I understand it.

The scheme is analogous to the scheme adopted by terminfo for terminals, and
similar hierarchical schemes are used in CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network) and other places too.


-- 
Jonathan Leffler <jonathan.leffler at gmail.com>  #include <disclaimer.h>
Guardian of DBD::Informix - v2008.0513 - http://dbi.perl.org
"Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be
amused."
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