[tz] version information in tz binary file?

[Lester Caine]

Zefram wrote:
> Secondly, I'm wary of the purposes to which this information might be put.
> It looks like you intend it for debugging/tracing purposes, which is OK.
> But people might end up using it in semantically significant ways,
> such as selecting a tzfile by searching for the one with a particular
> version/name tag.  Such use should be discouraged.  If you explicate
> in tzfile(5) that these tags do not affect the meaning of the file,
> that should be OK.

How is the 'current' version of the binary file identified? If one assumes that 
the latest version is the only 'correct' one, the problem is ensuring that IS 
what one is looking at? If a distribution has not updated this then the problems 
of old data arise.

One of my other services 'dials home' and asks what the latest version number is 
and will warn if the local copy is older. That uses a timestamp in the data file.

Managing the history of changes is a separate problem, so the embedded stamp can 
only define 'latest' snapshot?

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk