[tz] Java & Rearguard

[Paul Eggert]

Stephen Colebourne wrote:
> Another alternative would be to express both pieces of information in
> the data somehow

tzdb does that now, if by "data" one includes both ordinary files like "africa", 
and the ziguard.awk file that transforms these files to either rearguard or 
vanguard format. If one is given the ordinary files and the ziguard.awk file, 
one can automatically translate the ordinary files to rearguard, main, or 
vanguard format. This means that the information you're requesting is already 
present in tzdb, albeit in a somewhat convoluted form. The form is not that bad 
and the alternative (changing the format of the zic input file) would impose 
more-serious conversion headaches.