[tz] Database available in other formats

[Paul Eggert]

On 4/28/20 8:12 AM, Sergio Bonfiglio wrote:

> I was overwhelmed by the complexity of your database, because it requires
> also external pieces of code to be safely read.

Yes, it's in its own .zi format. Typically I edit it with a text editor so I
suppose that counts as an external piece of code. Most people either do that, or
process it with the code supplied as part of tzdb, or use one of the
already-written tz compilers
<https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tz-link.html#compilers>. Perhaps one of those
will work for you.

> An SQL database could be really "for everyone", because can be queried by
> everything from everywhere by any language.

MariaDB, MySQL, and Oracle Database use tzdb in some form; perhaps they're
already doing something along the lines of what you're asking for.

> If I may make a humble suggestion, a JD date in floating format that equips
> any record with the initial and final date of the rule/event could be of
> great help.

JD should be relatively easy to generate automatically from the existing format.
I doubt whether the source data should have JD directly, though, as JD is
inconvenient for humans and anyway the .zi format is now read by so many
programs that any changes to it would need to be carefully considered and
justified. But JD could be good for database queries, along the lines of your
suggestion.