[tz] Howard Hinnant's Time Zone Database Parser

[Howard Hinnant]

On Dec 3, 2019, at 6:33 PM, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
> 
> On 12/3/19 3:12 PM, Arthur David Olson wrote:
> 
>>        If |AUTO_DOWNLOAD| is |1| then first access to the timezone
>>        database will install it if it hasn't been installed, and if it
>>        has, will use the remote API to install the latest version if
>>        not already installed.
> 
> You're right, that's somewhat concerning, as iana.org is not set up to handle HTTPS requests from a lot of clients. Perhaps Howard can be talked into making his parser's default URL point somewhere else (GitHub?) instead of to iana.org. I'll CC: this message to him.
> 
> Also, although that parser scrapes the current version number from <https://www.iana.org/time-zones>, that web page's format is not standardized and might change. It would be more reliable to get the latest version number from <https://data.iana.org/time-zones/data/version>, or to get the latest version (including its version number) from <https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tzdata-latest.tar.gz>.

The end-game here is this library has been voted into the C++20 working draft, to be provided by the std::lib vendors.  And without the AUTO_DOWNLOAD feature.  Each platform will provide the database as Linux/Mac/BSD do now.

http://eel.is/c++draft/#time

As C++20 becomes more available, my library will be obsoleted by the std implementation.  It is a planned obsolesce.  The AUTO_DOWNLOAD will functionality will fade into the rearview mirror.

But do be aware that the IANA timezone database (not the tools) has now effectively become the provider for an ISO standard.  So try not to get too crazy with changing things. :-)

Howard

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