[tz] Fractional seconds in zic input

[Tom Lane]

Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> writes:
> Howard Hinnant wrote:
>> If such changes to the database are to be made, I would much prefer they be made asap.

> We should have tzdb generate both bleeding-edge format (with fractional
> seconds and negative DST offsets) and trailing-edge format (without
> either feature, at least for now). So you'll be able to test with
> bleeding-edge if you like. I'll try to publish a patch to do that soon.

I'm a bit astonished at the direction this discussion is taking.  You're
proposing to impose rather massive costs on all downstream consumers of
tzdb --- maybe not immediately, but eventually --- in order to be able to
represent local time in the Netherlands pre-1937 a fraction of a second
more accurately?

Last I heard, pre-1970 timestamps weren't really even in scope for tzdb,
so this seems like a seriously poor misjudgment of what is worth spending
people's time on.  And it's not even your own time that you're proposing
to expend.

The original idea of adding the fractional seconds to the source files,
and then dropping them again on output, sounded about right from here.

			regards, tom lane