[tz] time keeps on slipping into the future

[Bradley White]

On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 12:37 PM Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:

> On 2022-10-14 00:10, Bradley White wrote:
> > Perhaps a goal should be a public (in the repo), comprehensive test suite
> > that verifies all the options, in all their combinations?
>
> Although the tests could certainly be more extensive, I doubt whether it
> would be practical to test all option combinations as I count about four
> dozen options now, many with more than two possibilities.
>

That's a problem, isn't it.  I'd proffer that too many options to test
means too many options, period.

And the non-visibility of "the tests" means that we "downstream users" are
never going to be as effective in catching problems as you might be
expecting.  We also can't contribute to the tests.


> One step we can easily take is to improve the comments to warn about
> this particular problem, so I installed the attached.


*Fat TZif files work around incompatibilities and bugs in some*
*TZif readers, notably older ones that ignore or otherwise*
*mishandle 64-bit data in TZif files; however, fat TZif files*
*may trigger bugs in newer TZif readers.*


[I'm not sure I would characterize the inability of an old reader to handle
a new format as a "bug", but OK.]

So, to handle old readers I need fat TZif files, and to handle new readers
I need to avoid fat TZif files.  That places folks who want to handle all
readers in an untenable position.
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