[tz] Fwd: input needed on creation of a new sub-package for raw zone data

Patsy Franklin pfrankli at redhat.com
Tue May 23 13:30:38 UTC 2017


Sorry, should have replied to all on this one.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Patsy Franklin <pfrankli at redhat.com>
Date: Tue, May 23, 2017 at 9:26 AM
Subject: Re: [tz] input needed on creation of a new sub-package for raw
zone data
To: Brian.Inglis at systematicsw.ab.ca


Hi Brian,

Thanks for the feedback!

On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 1:54 PM, Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis at systematicsw.ab.
ca> wrote:

> On 2017-05-22 07:03, Patsy Franklin wrote:
> > I'd appreciate community input on this plan. Ideally if others decide
> > to also ship a similar subpackage we can use a common naming
> > convention and install directory.
> >
> > We are planning to ship a new subpackage for users who want to have
> > access to the raw zone data files e.g. leapseconds, and in a
> > pre-determined install location e.g. /usr/share/zoneinfo/zonedata/.
>
> How about using /usr/share/tzdata{,-src}/ maybe with subdirectories
> tzdata-2017b, etc.
>
>
We really want to avoid using src to prevent any confusion between the full
src rpm that
we ship and this subset of the zone data.


> > The raw zone data is useful for users designing their own interfaces
> > on top of this data. The broadest flexibility is offered by the raw
> > zone data, and while the compiled binary data is versioned and more
> > stable, some users have expressed a request for the raw zone data.
> > The understanding is that the raw zone data format may change.
> >
> > In summary:
> > Our current plan is to use -zonedata in naming the subpackage, For
> > example, tzdata-zonedata-2017b-1.el7.
>
> How about tzdata-src-2017b...?
>
>
We already provide tzdata-2017b-1.el7.src.rpm which contains the full set
of sources.  The location of these sources is defined by the installer.

> We plan to install the files in this subpackage under
> > /usr/share/zoneinfo/zonedata/.
>
> Adding zonedata does not add any useful information about the contents
> and storing under /usr/share/zoneinfo/ could be confusing as there are
> already subdirectories posix and right holding copies of standard and
> leapsecond compensated binary data files, so TZ=posix/... and
> TZ=right/... are valid zones, and users may expect something similar to
> happen using TZ=zonedata/... which would be unfortunate.
>
>
That's a good point.  I hadn't considered that case.

We chose zonedata to clarify that it was only the zone data - not zic,
zdump, binaries, etc.

It was requested that we provide this subset of files in a consistent
location at install time which is why we grouped it under the zoneinfo
directory.
Is there a more appropriate place to install it?

Do you have any other suggestions for a name since I think src is ambiguous
for our purposes?


> Just as an example we would ship the following files:
> > LICENSE
> > version
> > africa
> > antarctica
> > asia
> > australasia
> > europe
> > northamerica
> > southamerica
> > pacificnew
> > etcetera
> > backward
> > systemv
> > factory
> > backzone
> > iso3166.tab
> > leapseconds
> > leap-seconds.list
> > zone1970.tab
> > zone.tab
>
> README, CONTRIBUTING, NEWS, and Theory should be included, also
> tz-how-to.html which documents how to define and use the sources.
> leap-seconds.list should be a (symbolic?) link to the canonical file
> version leap-seconds.<timestamp> e.g. leap-seconds.3692908800.
>


We ship README and Theory with the base package.  CONTRIBUTING, NEWS and
tz-how-to.html is shipped with our src package.   Do we still need to
duplicate these in the optional subpackages?

BTW, I forgot to mention that our spec file will not allow the new
subpackage to be installed without the corresponding version of the base
package.   The base package does not require the optional  new subpackage
but will check to insure that it is in sync if it is installed.

Do we still need to version the leap-seconds file if it is tied to a
specific tzdata version?

Thanks!
Patsy

>
> --
> Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
>
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