[tz] tzdata2016g missing version information

Brian Inglis Brian.Inglis at systematicsw.ab.ca
Thu Sep 29 21:15:02 UTC 2016


On 2016-09-28 19:30, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 09/28/2016 02:30 PM, Steve Summit wrote:
>> Maybe install it in the zoneinfo dir as ".version"?
> Perhaps we should put some syntax into the installed file, so that no
> matter what the version is, the file can't be misinterpreted as a tz
> binary file. For example, the file could be a line of the form
> "version='V'" rather than just "V", and we could call the file
> "version.sh" so that people expect it to use shell script syntax.
> This would give us more freedom to extend the file's format later.
> Calling the file "version.sh" also makes it clearer that it's not a
> normal data file, whose names do not contain ".". It might be better
> to do it that way, than to use a leading "." and make the file
> hidden.

How about just keeping it pure data and calling it version.txt,
version.list, version.version, or $PKG.version?

If right directories are generated, please install leapseconds.list,
either at the root or under right, so we can check if right data
needs regenerated when leapseconds are updated: currently Debian
installs it, Centos does not, others?

Also if backzone is used, install that too as a flag that it was used.

To make life easier for distribution packagers, and admins of systems using
distros, which is probably most (rather than assuming individuals installing
under the generic TOPDIR=/usr/local, which now should probably be /usr/opt in
most cases, and is fine for code) please consider defaulting installation to
the standard "TOP" dirs: /etc, /usr/sbin, /usr/share/..., etc. (zic is normally
installed in /usr/sbin), and take those variations into consideration in
definitions and installation steps.

Please also consider adding a DOCDIR=/usr/share/doc/tzdata, define the actual
docs separate from MANS and COMMON, which includes Makefile (and should include
version), and install the docs, MANTXTS, and HTML in DOCDIR. Some distros install
some docs and some web pages, and some install none (e.g. Debian) with the data.

Please also consider including your ChangeLog (from .gitignore), or generating
it with git log --decorate=full (currently ~1MB: could limit it to [y-1]a..),
and adding it to docs for installation: this makes it easier to see what files
changed.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada


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