[tz] zic changes (2/2)

[Paul Eggert]

On 03/02/2016 09:38 PM, Random832 wrote:
> Are you
> saying that the_actual intent_  of the POSIX committee was to forbid the
> use of the traditional System III timezone format, rather than allowing
> it (as the brackets imply) and having the rules be
> implementation-defined?

That's what I was saying, yes, but it appears I was incorrect. The 
original intent was to allow the syntax TZ='PST8PDT', but to leave the 
daylight-saving rules unspecified in this case. Hence the test case that 
prompted this thread (though most likely illustrating a bug in glibc) 
does not illustrate a violation of POSIX, because portable programs 
should not assume that TZ strings like 'PST8PDT' have any particular 
behavior with respect to when DST starts and stops.

This is all stated clearly in the rationale for POSIX 1003.1-1988. I 
guess that part of the rationale has been discareded in more recent 
editions of the standard, which makes the current standard confusing (it 
confused *me*, anyway). Quoting from B8.1.1, page 267:

"Rules of the form AAAn or AAAnBBB (the style used in many historical 
implementations) do not carry with them any statement about the start 
and end of daylight time.... An implementation may provide those rules 
in any way it sees fit, as long as the constraints implied by the TZ 
string as provided by the user are met. Specifically the implementation 
may use the string as an index into a table, which may reside either on 
disk or in memory. Such tables could contain rules which are sensitive 
to the year to which they are supplied, again since the user did not 
specify the exact rule....

"There is at least one public domain time zone implementation (the 
Olson/Harris method) that uses non-specific TZ strings and a table, as 
described above and handles all the general time zone problems mentioned 
above.... Nothing precludes the implementation from adding information 
beyond that given by the user in the TZ string."


To try to save Guy Harris some time in reply, I should mention that 
there is an attribution error in rationale quoted above. As Guy wrote on 
1991-09-25 in comp.unix.misc, "It is referred to as the 'Olson/Harris' 
method by the rationale for section B.8.1.1 in the POSIX 1003.1 spec, 
but as the 'Harris' in question, I'd prefer it just be called the 
'Arthur Olson' method; it was Arthur's idea, and while I was *one* of 
the contributors to the implementation, other contributors provided at 
least as much stuff as I did." 
<https://groups.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=msg/comp.unix.misc/-ipgFFYVFcs/cdI_k0mRxMoJ>.