tzdata 2003e: imperfections

[Oscar van Vlijmen]

I found a couple of small imperfections in the tzdata files.

asia file:
Cyprus is now (May 01, 2004) part of the European Union. In spite of the
interesting remarks for Cyprus in the tz data file, the Cyprus entry should
be in the europe file.


antarctica file:
New Zealand: Rules are given, but no Zone information, so no actual time
information.


All files:
GMT is obsolete. UTC should be used.


Nearly all files, lots of entries:
In some cases DST is no longer observed, but the Zone lines still mention a
DST Rule.
One example from the asia file (some information omitted by me):

# Korea (North and South)
...
# Rule    NAME    FROM    TO    TYPE    IN    ON    AT    SAVE    LETTER/S
Rule    ROK    1960    only    -    May    15    0:00    1:00    D
Rule    ROK    1960    only    -    Sep    13    0:00    0    S
Rule    ROK    1987    1988    -    May    Sun<=14    0:00    1:00    D
Rule    ROK    1987    1988    -    Oct    Sun<=14    0:00    0    S
# Zone    NAME        GMTOFF    RULES    FORMAT    [UNTIL]
Zone    Asia/Seoul    8:27:52    -    LMT    1890
            8:30    -    KST    1904 Dec
            9:00    -    KST    1928
            8:30    -    KST    1932
            9:00    -    KST    1954 Mar 21
            8:00    ROK    K%sT    1961 Aug 10
            8:30    -    KST    1968 Oct
            9:00    ROK    K%sT
...

Since South Korea no longer observes DST, it would be better for the
consistency of the database if the last line was changed into:
            9:00    ROK    K%sT 1988 Oct
and an extra line was added, like:
            9:00    -    KST

The software will give the correct time for e.g. this moment I guess,
because no Rule line can be found, valid for May 2004.
So, changing the database files for this could get a low priority, but it is
still an imperfection!

Oscar van Vlijmen
2004-05-17