[tz] Pulling the data apart ...

[random832 at fastmail.us]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2013, at 14:32, Tobias Conradi wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 7:40 PM,  <random832 at fastmail.us> wrote:
> > People don't use the term "separated" for that.
> 
> Except those that do,

Huh? Surely you're not claiming that the format _actually_ separates
them with no space between them. Go ahead and delete every space from
your files, see if zic accepts them.

> e.g. tz documentation writers that use "any
> number" instead of "one or more".

I assert that by "number" they meant "natural number" rather than
"integer" (or complex number, or rational number, or real number).

The fact that it is a number of characters implies it is an integer. The
fact that it is a number of characters that separates something implies
it is nonzero and positive. "number" by itself is defined by context.
No-one would imagine that this includes non-integers or negative numbers
or complex numbers. Not even in your wildest fantasies did you claim
there may be sqrt(2)+pi*i spaces, even though that is a number.