format of tz database

[Chris Sells]

>    XML would allow the data to be used without the software, making it
>    instantly available for all the platforms not supported today
>
> Yes, they could read the XML data, but these platforms can read the
> text data now.

Assuming they've already written the appropriately robust text parser that
works with the tzinfo text format. With XML, that work's already been done
(in spades).

> Merely XMLizing the data won't make it much more
> available for time calculations, which is the goal here.

No, but it will open it up for other uses. When I was doing my work, the
only reason I was bothering to port the parsing software was to extract the
data I wanted and not because I wanted it to do any calculations for me.

>    > From: Eric Ulevik [mailto:eau at ozemail.com.au]
>    > * right now, there are no good editors for creating XML
>
>    Not true. Win32 has about half a dozen good ones.
>
> I don't use Win32, and I don't know of any free, portable XML editor
> (unless you count Emacs :-).

Actually, I've seen some killer Emacs add-ins for XML. : )
Chris