possible time zone file syntax extension

Arthur David Olson ado
Fri Nov 5 15:50:32 UTC 1993


There's work in progress on adding historical information to time zone files.
It might be useful to extend the syntax of "UNTIL" parts so that you could
write something such as

	# Zone	NAME	GMTOFF	RULES/SAVE	FORMAT	[UNTIL]
	Zone	This	0:00	-		TST	1916 May 21 2:00s
			0:00	Whatever	T%sT	1968 Feb 18 2:00s->That

where the "->That" on the final line means "after the UNTIL time,
use whatever happens in Zone 'That'."  This would both allow for more
concise representation of historic information and allow a "-c"
(or some other letter) flag to zic that would tell it to only compile
"current" zones--zones that did NOT end with a line containing "->".

If you have insights on whether this is the best thing to do, I'd love it if
you'd share them with folks on the time zone mailing list.

				--ado



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