IST/IDT [Re: Chamorro Standard Time (new US time zone)]

Garrett Wollman wollman at khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu
Fri Jan 12 20:13:16 UTC 2001


<<On Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:17:09 +0100, Antoine Leca <Antoine.Leca at renault.fr> said:

> collect tz datas for all countries, collecting the abbreviations makes less
> sense, particularly in the countries where only one timezone is in current use.

Indeed, the entire notion of a standard timezone abbreviation makes
little or no sense in many countries, and at times the tz database
maintainers have had to go to some lengths to invent one appropriate
for the location.  (I imagine most French-speaking areas outside
continental France make little distinction beyond ``heure locale''
and ``heure de New-York'' etc. -- and the English-language initialisms
found in the tz database are of little value.)

I'm curious, though... I know the tz library and database is in use by
several commercial vendors with extensive localization programs (e.g.,
Sun).  Do those vendors make an effort to translate the tz strings as
well, so that `EST' and `EDT' in locale fr_CA come out `HNE' and
`HAE'?  If so, do they do it by providing a completely localized tz
database, or a locally-localized one, or by applying some
post-processing on the (English) strings in the standard database?

-GAWollman




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