[tz] What are the interfaces to the TZDB?

Clive D.W. Feather clive at davros.org
Tue Nov 9 10:27:33 UTC 2021


Eliot Lear said:
>>> What I am sensing from your proposal, as well as from some of the
>>> followup comments, is a need to further clarify exactly what the tzdb
>>> project's interfaces are.
> 
>> I agree with this. I think it should have priority over the rest of this discuss
> ion.
> 
> Which are we talking about?  There are already the POSIX interfaces.
> Are we talking about the binary files?  Is this something on which we
> are likely to gain consensus?

We're talking about a whole load of stuff and I'm not even sure what it all
is.

But documented formats for the various files, *including* saying what
stuff may change without warning ("unspecified behaviour" in C terms)
versus what can be relied on, is an obvious start.

Defining what the legal values of fields are and what they mean (see Irish
winter time for an example). What happens if you provide a value that's out
of range?

Et seq ad nauseam.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
Email: clive at davros.org     | it will get its revenge.
Web: http://www.davros.org  |   - Henry Spencer
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