[tz] Full timezone names

[Guy Harris]

On Jul 19, 2015, at 8:56 PM, William Roberts <wmr501 at outlook.com> wrote:

> I'm currently using the tz data that comes with PHP. Is there a way of retrieving the full timezone name from the tz database, eg. Central European Time, Eastern Standard Time etc.

As they are not stored in the tzdb, no, there is no way to do that.  There's no place in the syntax of the source file or the binary files to store them.

> So far I haven't been able to, so am using the CLDR repository which assigns a metazone to each timezone from the tz database, and from that I can get the full timezone name but it's not ideal as they don't always match exactly with the abbreviations from the tz data.
> 
> Are there any plans to enable the full timezone names to be retrieved from the tz database the same way you would the abbreviations in PHP for example, or is getting them from the CLDR repository the best way to go about it? 

As the tzdb isn't oriented towards providing locale-dependent data, getting it from the CLDR - which *is* oriented towards that - is the best way to go about it.

It might be nice if we were to have the tzdb provide metazone information, so that the CLDR doesn't have to duplicate part of the tzdb, and leave it up to the CLDR to provide long time zone names *and* abbreviations for locales other than the C locale, so that the tzdb only has to worry about providing abbreviations for the C locale, allowing people upset about the choice of abbreviation to pester the CLDB maintainers rather than us. :-)