[tz] Getting current tzdb version in use
Paul Eggert
eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Thu Jul 19 23:40:23 UTC 2018
Robert Elz wrote:
> I have more than doubts, I am convinced that the entire thing is
> misguided, and that (with the one exception of curiosity value,
> the ability of an application to tell people which version data it
> is using) there is no good use of this data
Yes, that's the only good use I can think of as well. That is, the version
string is more for diagnosing obsolete or misconfigured systems than for use in
ordinary computation. That being said, configuration is of growing importance in
software engineering, and I hope that the version comment in tzdata.zi is enough
to satisfy needs in this area.
With TZDIST the version info is best done via ETags, and this should work with
TZif files so that clients can easily see whether they're up-to-date and get a
new version if not. See Internet RFC 7808 section 4.1.4 along with:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-murchison-tzdist-tzif-09
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