[tz] [PATCH] Replace Africa zones with links when that doesn't lose useful info.

[Brian Inglis]

On 2014-07-10 09:46, Derick Rethans wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jul 2014, Paul Eggert wrote:
>
>> * africa (Africa/Luanda, Africa/Porto-Novo, Africa/Gaborone)
>> (Africa/Ouagadougou, Africa/Bujumbura, Africa/Douala, Africa/Bangui)
>> (Indian/Comoro, Africa/Kinshasa, Africa/Lubumbashi, Africa/Brazzaville)
>> (Africa/Djibouti, Africa/Malabo, Africa/Asmara, Africa/Addis_Ababa)
>> (Africa/Libreville, Africa/Banjul, Africa/Accra, Africa/Conakry)
>> (Africa/Maseru, Indian/Antananarivo, Africa/Blantyre, Africa/Bamako)
>> (Africa/Nouakchott, Indian/Mayotte, Africa/Maputo, Africa/Niamey)
>> (Africa/Kigali, Atlantic/St_Helena, Africa/Sao_Tome, Africa/Dakar)
>> (Africa/Freetown, Africa/Mogadishu, Africa/Mbabane, Africa/Dar_es_Salaam)
>> (Africa/Lome, Africa/Kampala, Africa/Lusaka, Africa/Harare):
>> * antarctica (Antarctica/Syowa):
>> Remove zone, replacing each with a link to a region that has had
>> the same UTC offset since 1970.
>
> Please keep this data stable and do *not* make this change. You can not
> just replace a region's data with another *just* because all the data
> since 1970 was the same. It removes data from before 1970 that is
> currectly (more) correct.
>
>>   # Malawi
>> -# Zone	NAME		GMTOFF	RULES	FORMAT	[UNTIL]
>> -Zone	Africa/Blantyre	2:20:00 -	LMT	1903 Mar
>> -			2:00	-	CAT
>> +# See Africa/Johannesburg.

Perhaps we need to flag the initial LMT offset in each zone, whether
specified or linked, rather than explicitly specifying it, so that it
can be calculated from the longitude of each location in zone.tab,
or for other locations within the area covered by the zone, if the
information is being used as part of an application that deals with
both space and time, such as old astronomical observations and astrology.
-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis