[tz] [PATCH 0/5] Simplifying Link line maintenance

[Stephen Colebourne]

Will the PACKRATLIST option successfully revert this and put the Links
back into the main (non-backward) files?
Stephen




On Mon, 26 Sept 2022 at 01:33, Paul Eggert via tz <tz at iana.org> wrote:
>
> Although TZDB currently puts most Link lines in the ‘backward’ file,
> some Link lines reside in the continental files ‘africa’,
> ‘antarctica’, etc., with little rhyme or reason as to which lines are
> in ‘backward’ and which line are in a continental file.  This is
> confusing and makes maintenance a bit more difficult.
>
> This proposed series of patches aims to regularize this by putting the
> Link lines into ‘backward’, except that to work around a TZUpdater bug
> the GMT Link line is in ‘backward’ only when using vanguard form.
>
> As part of these patches, the Link lines in ‘backward’ are organized
> into sections that better explain the reason for each Link line.
> Also, comments are added to document shortcut Link lines, that is,
> Link lines reworded to reference the target rather than the source of
> another Link line.  Furthermore, the Makefile is augmented to check
> Link lines more carefully.
>
> The overall effect of this patch is to shrink TZDB’s source code and
> make maintenance simpler and more robust, without affecting data
> except for users who are purposely bleeding-edge by omitting all
> backward-compatibility links.
>
> Because these patches are nontrivial I have not installed them in the
> development repository, and there is no rush.  Comments welcome as
> usual.
>
> Paul Eggert (5):
>   Move a few links to ‘backward’
>   Move most remaining links to ‘backward’
>   Reorder 'backward’
>   Improve checking for shortcut links
>   Coalesce some commentary
>
>  Makefile       |   6 +-
>  NEWS           |  17 +++
>  africa         | 213 ++++++++++--------------------------
>  antarctica     |   2 +-
>  asia           |  69 ++++--------
>  australasia    |  46 +++-----
>  backward       | 288 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
>  checklinks.awk |  17 +++
>  etcetera       |  17 ++-
>  europe         | 202 ++++++++++++----------------------
>  northamerica   |  86 ++++-----------
>  southamerica   |  15 ---
>  theory.html    |   1 +
>  zdump.c        |   4 +-
>  ziguard.awk    |  14 +++
>  15 files changed, 472 insertions(+), 525 deletions(-)
>
> --
> 2.37.3
>