[tz] LST

Zefram zefram at fysh.org
Fri Oct 14 12:12:05 UTC 2011


Robert Elz wrote:
>And is totally irrelevant,

It doesn't seem *totally* irrelevant.  It's true that we're not strictly
limited to abbreviations that will fit into a POSIX-TZ value.  But there
are two reasons why it's a good idea to stick to that range.  Firstly,
we have a field in the tzfile which is specified to be in POSIX-TZ
format.  If our abbreviations don't match the POSIX spec then we can't
properly fill that field: we either don't use it (and thus don't get
the benefit of that facility) or we fill it with a non-conforming value
(which won't necessarily work).  Secondly, and more relevant to what we
were discussing, the POSIX standard effectively determines a range of
abbreviations that code handling time in a POSIX environment can expect
to see and must be prepared to handle.  Sticking within that range
ensures a high degree of compatibility, though not as high as sticking
just to letters.

I note that the Theory section on abbreviations describes the POSIX rules
and expresses a preference for using only letters.  It also mentions
the issue of spaces breaking space splitting.

-zefram



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