Olson database name ambiguity

[Dave Rolsky]

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005, Tom Yandell wrote:

> Apologies for cross posting this. I think that this is a problem in the
> data in the Olson database, but as it is a binary format it is difficult
> to verify this. I have come across this problem using the DateTime perl
> module (version 0.28) whose data is generated from the Olson database.

The text versions of the Olson database are available here: 
http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm

> The problem that I am experiencing is that the short name for timezones
> for 'Europe/London' up until 1996 were either 'GMT' or 'BST' (depending
> if daylight saving changes were in effect). From 1996 the name for the
> timezone is the rather less precise 'GMT/BST' regardless of whether
> daylight saving changes are in effect or not. I have attached a script
> that demonstrates this, and its output.

Ah, I see.  I think my parser interprets the data in the Olson db 
incorrectly.  The db does just list "GMT/BST", but apparently that means 
they alternate, not that there's just one short name for that zone at all 
times.

Parsing the Olson DB is, ahem, not exactly fun ;)

I'll fix this in the next release.


-dave

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