FW: suggestion for simplified represention of timezone rules

[Paul Eggert]

> From: Robert Hodge [mailto:roberth at sisconet.com] 
> Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 9:26 AM

> I have had little success using the zic compiler or any of the
> source code, and have been forced to do my own parsing and analysis
> of the data.

What problems have you had with zic, or with the source code?
The C source code itself is supposed to be portable; if you tell
us exactly what problems you're having, quite likely we can fix it.

Also, you can get prebuilt copies of zic with most GNU/Linux
distributions, and commonly these can boot on any x86 platform
without modifying your existing operating system.  E.g., see
Knoppix <http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html> or
Ubuntu <http://www.ubuntu.com/>.

Or, if C and/or GNU/Linux is too much hassle for you, there is a list
of tz compilers written for other languages (C++, Java, JavaScript,
Python, Ruby); see <http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm> and look
for "Other tz compilers".

The tz data notation itself could be extended, but it's unlikely that
it would be changed in an incompatible way at this point, as there is
too much existing practice.