[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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