America/Edmonton and other zone naming issues

[Paul Eggert]

Oscar van Vlijmen <ovv at hetnet.nl> writes:

> He/she would think: Boise, that's in Idaho (USA), so he would expect to find
> a zone like America/Idaho. But no, he has to use America/Denver

That's not a good example.  He should use America/Boise.

> single zone name (e.g. Georgia) being a valid zone name (instead of
> Asia/Tbilisi).

That's another bad example.  The vast majority of uses of the name
"Georgia" in English refer to the USA state, not to the nation of
Georgia.

> The TZ software has probably a fine mechanism for setting up userfriendly
> zone names. See the 'backward' file with all its Links.

I'd rather not head that direction, since I don't want us to waste
time arbitrating disputes over what's the best use of names like
"Georgia".  We have enough political problems as it is; let's not
generate more of them.

However, to answer the main point, the zone.tab file is supposed to
help English-language users relate the Zone names (which are somewhat
arbitrary) to a description of the affected region.  The 'tzselect'
shell script that comes with the tz database is one way to do this.
People who prefer GUIs can easily substitute their own implementation
that uses zone.tab.  Here's a sample 'tzselect' interaction to show
how this might work for your example user in Boise.

$ tzselect
Please identify a location so that time zone rules can be set correctly.
Please select a continent or ocean.
 1) Africa
 2) Americas
 3) Antarctica
 4) Arctic Ocean
 5) Asia
 6) Atlantic Ocean
 7) Australia
 8) Europe
 9) Indian Ocean
10) Pacific Ocean
11) none - I want to specify the time zone using the Posix TZ format.
#? 2
Please select a country.
 1) Anguilla             18) Ecuador              35) Paraguay
 2) Antigua & Barbuda    19) El Salvador          36) Peru
 3) Argentina            20) French Guiana        37) Puerto Rico
 4) Aruba                21) Greenland            38) St Kitts & Nevis
 5) Bahamas              22) Grenada              39) St Lucia
 6) Barbados             23) Guadeloupe           40) St Pierre & Miquelon
 7) Belize               24) Guatemala            41) St Vincent
 8) Bolivia              25) Guyana               42) Suriname
 9) Brazil               26) Haiti                43) Trinidad & Tobago
10) Canada               27) Honduras             44) Turks & Caicos Is
11) Cayman Islands       28) Jamaica              45) United States
12) Chile                29) Martinique           46) Uruguay
13) Colombia             30) Mexico               47) Venezuela
14) Costa Rica           31) Montserrat           48) Virgin Islands (UK)
15) Cuba                 32) Netherlands Antilles 49) Virgin Islands (US)
16) Dominica             33) Nicaragua
17) Dominican Republic   34) Panama
#? 45
Please select one of the following time zone regions.
 1) Eastern Time
 2) Eastern Time - Michigan - most locations
 3) Eastern Time - Kentucky - Louisville area
 4) Eastern Time - Kentucky - Wayne County
 5) Eastern Time - Indiana - most locations
 6) Eastern Time - Indiana - Crawford County
 7) Eastern Time - Indiana - Starke County
 8) Eastern Time - Indiana - Switzerland County
 9) Central Time
10) Central Time - Indiana - Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin, Perry & Pulaski
11) Central Time - Indiana - Pike County
12) Central Time - Michigan - Dickinson, Gogebic, Iron & Menominee Counties
13) Central Time - North Dakota - Oliver County
14) Central Time - North Dakota - Morton County (except Mandan area)
15) Mountain Time
16) Mountain Time - south Idaho & east Oregon
17) Mountain Time - Navajo
18) Mountain Standard Time - Arizona
19) Pacific Time
20) Alaska Time
21) Alaska Time - Alaska panhandle
22) Alaska Time - Alaska panhandle neck
23) Alaska Time - west Alaska
24) Aleutian Islands
25) Hawaii
#? 16

The following information has been given:

        United States
        Mountain Time - south Idaho & east Oregon

Therefore TZ='America/Boise' will be used.
Local time is now:      Wed Feb  8 14:34:44 MST 2006.
Universal Time is now:  Wed Feb  8 21:34:44 UTC 2006.
Is the above information OK?
1) Yes
2) No
#? 1

You can make this change permanent for yourself by appending the line
        TZ='America/Boise'; export TZ
to the file '.profile' in your home directory; then log out and log in again.

Here is that TZ value again, this time on standard output so that you
can use the ./tzselect command in shell scripts:
America/Boise