[tz] tzdb timezone names/identifiers and links (was: Add new timezone for Hanoi Capital, Vietnam)

Guy Harris guy at alum.mit.edu
Tue Feb 19 20:11:46 UTC 2019


On Feb 19, 2019, at 11:59 AM, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:

> On 2/19/19 11:14 AM, Hans-Joerg Happel wrote:
> 
>> A second suggestion would be a short note that it is these identifiers which would be typically stored in database / system configuration / appointment in order to denote the time zone of a "thing" and that software will typically pick up the additional rule data in tzdb in order to compute meaningful things based on these identifiers. This is sort of implicit to the given text, but might be pointed out more explicitly.
> 
> While this may be common practice, I'm not sure we should recommend it as it's fragile in the presence of timezone splits.

I.e., if the "thing" is a *past* event/appointment/something else with a time and date, it's safe to associate a tzdb id with it, but if it's a *future* event/appointment/etc., or a *location*, the appropriate tzdb id is subject to change in the future.


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