[tz] ID string in zic's output files

Arthur David Olson arthurdavidolson at gmail.com
Wed Feb 22 22:41:53 UTC 2017


So much for the idea of storing ID strings in zic output files as (unused)
abbreviations. The zone America/Pangnirtung needs 41 bytes to store all the
abbreviations it uses:
    -00 AWT APT AST ADDT ADT EDT EST CST CDT
A zic output file can have at most 50 bytes of abbreviations, as set by
TZ_MAX_CHARS in tzfile.h The 9 bytes remaining isn't enough for our
purposes.

(We don't want to boost TZ_MAX_CHARS; localtime.c checks files to ensure
they have at most that many abbreviation characters; files with more would
be rejected, at least by now-in-the-field binaries compiled from
localtime.c)

Note that the last component of "Zone" names (such as the "Vevay" in
"America/Indiana/Vevay") would  fit in the 15 "reserved for future use"
bytes at the front of zic output files; full names would not (always) fit,
and there would not (always) be room for a prefix such as "@(#)."

    @dashdashado
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