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[PROPOSED] Sub-second history for Maputo and Zurich
by Paul Eggert May 24, 2024

May 24, 2024

* africa (Africa/Maputo), europe (Europe/Zurich): Add #STDOFF comments for two zones with well-sourced standard time that was not an integral number of seconds away from UT. This does not change the TZif output files. --- africa | 5 +++-- europe | 5 +++-- 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/africa b/africa index 695d66ed..4f0d1e7b 100644 --- a/africa +++ b/africa @@ -1101,11 +1101,11 @@ Zone Africa/El_Aaiun -0:52:48 - LMT 1934 Jan # El Aaiún # Zambia # Zimbabwe # -# From Paul Eggert (2024-04-09): +# From Paul Eggert (2024-05-24): # The London Gazette, 1903-04-03, page 2245, says that # as of 1903-03-03 a time ball at the port of Lourenço Marques # (as Maputo was then called) was dropped daily at 13:00:00 LMT, -# corresponding to 22:49:41.7 GMT; round this to UT+2:10:18. +# corresponding to 22:49:41.7 GMT, so local time was +02:10:18.3. # Conversely, the newspaper South Africa, 1909-02-09, page 321, # says the port had just installed an apparatus that communicated # "from the controlling clock in the new Observatory at Reuben Point ... @@ -1116,6 +1116,7 @@ Zone Africa/El_Aaiun -0:52:48 - LMT 1934 Jan # El Aaiún # For lack of better info, list 1909 as the transition date. # # Zone NAME STDOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] + #STDOFF 2:10:18.3 Zone Africa/Maputo 2:10:18 - LMT 1909 2:00 - CAT diff --git a/europe b/europe index 9ea14914..2f180e64 100644 --- a/europe +++ b/europe @@ -3486,8 +3486,8 @@ Zone Atlantic/Canary -1:01:36 - LMT 1922 Mar # Las Palmas de Gran C. # but if no one is present after 11 at night, could be postponed until one # hour before the beginning of service. -# From Paul Eggert (2013-09-11): -# Round BMT to the nearest even second, 0:29:46. +# From Paul Eggert (2024-05-24): +# Express BMT as 0:29:45.500, approximately the same precision 7° 26' 22.50". # # We can find no reliable source for Shanks's assertion that all of Switzerland # except Geneva switched to Bern Mean Time at 00:00 on 1848-09-12. This book: @@ -3526,6 +3526,7 @@ Rule Swiss 1941 1942 - May Mon>=1 1:00 1:00 S Rule Swiss 1941 1942 - Oct Mon>=1 2:00 0 - # Zone NAME STDOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Europe/Zurich 0:34:08 - LMT 1853 Jul 16 # See above comment. + #STDOFF 0:29:45.500 0:29:46 - BMT 1894 Jun # Bern Mean Time 1:00 Swiss CE%sT 1981 1:00 EU CE%sT -- 2.43.0

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Deprecating POSIX Zones to Links?
by Justin Grant May 23, 2024

May 23, 2024

Hi TZ friends - I'm one of the volunteers working on ECMAScript's time zone strategy. We had a question: of all the legacy Zone names in TZDB, why have a few of them like "WET" and "EST5EDT" been retained as Zones, while the rest of the legacy names like "GB-Eire" and "Jamaica" have all been turned into Links pointing to some other Zone? What was special about the Zones below that caused them to stay as Zones? EST MST HST EST5EDT CST6CDT MST7MDT PST8PDT WET CET MET EET Regardless of the history behind these 11 Zone names, would there be interest in accepting a PR that turns these Zones into Links? I'm asking because ECMAScript's time zone enumeration API is specified to only return Zone names, but ECMAScript implementations in Safari and Chrome have long omitted the Zones above from their enumeration API because they create redundant and confusing results for end users. We'd like to align the specification to web reality, and ideally make these changes upstream in TZDB (if that would be welcome). Here's the mappings that we're currently considering in ECMAScript. We used the TZ approach of preferring the largest city for each of the DST-using legacy Zones. Although any other mappings would be OK with us, so let me know if you think there are more appropriate mappings. EST => Etc/GMT+5 MST => Etc/GMT+7 HST => Etc/GMT+10 EST5EDT => America/New_York CST6CDT => America/Chicago MST7MDT => America/Denver PST8PDT => America/Los_Angeles WET => Europe/Lisbon CET => Europe/Berlin MET => Europe/Berlin EET => Europe/Kyiv Thanks, Justin Grant

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[PROPOSED 1/2] Don’t be so sure about leap seconds going away
by Paul Eggert May 14, 2024

May 14, 2024

* NEWS, theory.html (Leap seconds): * tz-link.html (Precision timekeeping): Use less-sure wording about leap seconds discontinuance, since the situation is still murky. --- NEWS | 2 +- theory.html | 10 +++++----- tz-link.html | 1 + 3 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS index 5c2cd1e5..e5db26b4 100644 --- a/NEWS +++ b/NEWS @@ -322,7 +322,7 @@ Release 2023a - 2023-03-22 12:39:33 -0700 To improve tzselect diagnostics, zone1970.tab's comments column is now limited to countries that have multiple timezones. - Note that leap seconds are planned to be discontinued by 2035. + Note that there are plans to discontinue leap seconds by 2035. Release 2022g - 2022-11-29 08:58:31 -0800 diff --git a/theory.html b/theory.html index 50e9ee4d..4cb293da 100644 --- a/theory.html +++ b/theory.html @@ -1278,11 +1278,11 @@ between now and the future time. <p> Leap seconds were introduced in 1972 to accommodate the difference between atomic time and the less regular rotation of the earth. -Unfortunately they caused so many problems with civil -timekeeping that they -are <a href="https://www.bipm.org/en/cgpm-2022/resolution-4">planned -to be discontinued by 2035</a>. -Despite their impending obsolescence, a record of leap seconds is still +Unfortunately they have caused so many problems with civil +timekeeping that there are +<a href="https://www.bipm.org/en/cgpm-2022/resolution-4">plans +to discontinue them by 2035</a>. +Even if these plans come to fruition, a record of leap seconds will still be needed to resolve timestamps from 1972 through 2035. </p> diff --git a/tz-link.html b/tz-link.html index c6d96101..aaab7555 100644 --- a/tz-link.html +++ b/tz-link.html @@ -1129,6 +1129,7 @@ discontinuous adjustments be made to UTC for at least a century. The World Radiocommunication Conference <a href="https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-r/opb/act/R-ACT-WRC.15-2023-PDF-E.pdf">resolved in 2023</a> to cooperate with this process. +However, there is still no consensus on how exactly to get rid of them. </li> </ul> </section> -- 2.40.1

1 1

manual pages in tzdb
by Alejandro Colomar May 12, 2024

May 12, 2024

Hi Paul, I had in mind something: I would like to cherry-pick all tzdb's commits that affect manual pages into the Linux man-pages git repository, instead of just pasting here snapshots of your manual pages. For that to work, we'd need to agree on a path inside the repository (or I could manually --or with a script-- edit each commit, which would be combersome, and I'd rather avoid). What do you think of moving the pages in the tzdb repository into man/man*/ directories? I see your repository is perfectly flat, so I don't know if there are strong reasons for that, or if it's just innertia. To be explicit, this is what I'd do in tzdb.git: diff --git a/date.1 b/man/man1/date.1 similarity index 100% rename from date.1 rename to man/man1/date.1 diff --git a/newctime.3 b/man/man3/newctime.3 similarity index 100% rename from newctime.3 rename to man/man3/newctime.3 diff --git a/newstrftime.3 b/man/man3/newstrftime.3 similarity index 100% rename from newstrftime.3 rename to man/man3/newstrftime.3 diff --git a/newtzset.3 b/man/man3/newtzset.3 similarity index 100% rename from newtzset.3 rename to man/man3/newtzset.3 diff --git a/time2posix.3 b/man/man3/time2posix.3 similarity index 100% rename from time2posix.3 rename to man/man3/time2posix.3 diff --git a/tzfile.5 b/man/man5/tzfile.5 similarity index 100% rename from tzfile.5 rename to man/man5/tzfile.5 diff --git a/tzselect.8 b/man/man8/tzselect.8 similarity index 100% rename from tzselect.8 rename to man/man8/tzselect.8 diff --git a/zdump.8 b/man/man8/zdump.8 similarity index 100% rename from zdump.8 rename to man/man8/zdump.8 diff --git a/zic.8 b/man/man8/zic.8 similarity index 100% rename from zic.8 rename to man/man8/zic.8 If we do that, then my idea would be to do $ git remote add tzdb git@github.com:eggert/tz.git in my Linux man-pages local repo, and cherry-pick commits '-- man/' from time to time. Does that sound good to you? Have a lovely day! Alex -- <https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/> A client is hiring kernel driver, mm, and/or crypto developers; contact me if interested.

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[PROPOSED] Update some URLs
by Paul Eggert May 8, 2024

May 8, 2024

--- theory.html | 2 +- tz-link.html | 40 +++++++++++++++++++--------------------- 2 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-) diff --git a/theory.html b/theory.html index 5cb80d99..50e9ee4d 100644 --- a/theory.html +++ b/theory.html @@ -1088,7 +1088,7 @@ an older <code>zic</code>. and <code>localtime_rz</code> and <code>mktime_z</code> are like <code>localtime_r</code> and <code>mktime</code> with an extra <code>timezone_t</code> argument. - The functions were inspired by <a href="https://netbsd.org/">NetBSD</a>. + The functions were inspired by <a href="https://netbsd.org">NetBSD</a>. </li> <li> Negative <code>time_t</code> values are supported, on systems diff --git a/tz-link.html b/tz-link.html index 162d63ce..c6d96101 100644 --- a/tz-link.html +++ b/tz-link.html @@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ C Library</a> (used in title="Berkeley Software Distribution">BSD</abbr></a>, <a href="https://netbsd.org">Net<abbr>BSD</abbr></a>, <a href="https://www.openbsd.org">Open<abbr>BSD</abbr></a>, -<a href="https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/">Chromium OS</a>, +<a href="https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/">ChromiumOS</a>, <a href="https://cygwin.com">Cygwin</a>, <a href="https://mariadb.org">MariaDB</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX">MINIX</a>, @@ -211,7 +211,7 @@ href="https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/tz">subscribe</a> to it and browse the <a href="https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/">archive of old messages</a>. -<a href="https://tzdata-meta.timtimeonline.com/">Metadata for mailing list +<a href="https://tzdata-meta.timtimeonline.com">Metadata for mailing list discussions</a> and corresponding data changes can be generated <a href="https://github.com/timparenti/tzdata-meta">automatically</a>. </p> @@ -226,7 +226,7 @@ the process by tailoring the generic instructions in the <code><abbr>tz</abbr> README</code> file and installing the latest data yourself. System-specific instructions for installing the latest <code><abbr>tz</abbr></code> data have also been published -for <a href="https://developer.ibm.com/articles/au-aix-olson-time-zone/"><abbr>AIX</abbr></a>, +for <a href="https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/aix-time-zone-olson-tzdata-updates"><abbr>AIX</abbr></a>, <a href="https://source.android.com/devices/tech/config/timezone-rules">Android</a>, <a @@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ with lines terminated by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline"><abbr title="linefeed">LF</abbr></a>, which can be modified by common text editors such as <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">GNU Emacs</a>, -<a href="https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gedit">gedit</a>, and +<a href="https://gedit-technology.github.io/apps/gedit/">gedit</a>, and <a href="https://www.vim.org">vim</a>. Specialized source-file editing can be done via the <a href="https://packagecontrol.io/packages/zoneinfo">Sublime @@ -400,7 +400,7 @@ variant <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6321">xCal</a> title="Extensible Markup Language">XML</abbr></a> format, and a variant <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7265">jCal</a> (Internet <abbr>RFC</abbr> 7265) -uses <a href="https://www.json.org"><abbr +uses <a href="https://www.json.org/json-en.html"><abbr title="JavaScript Object Notation">JSON</abbr></a> format.</li> </ul> </section> @@ -440,11 +440,9 @@ transition in the <code><abbr>tz</abbr></code> database.</li> <li>The <a href="https://howardhinnant.github.io/date/tz.html">Time Zone Database Parser</a> is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C++">C++</a> parser and -runtime library with <a -href="https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2018/p0355r7.html">API</a> -adopted by -<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C++20">C++20</a>, -the current iteration of the C++ standard. +runtime library with a <a +href="https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/chrono"><code>std::chrono</code> API</a> +that is a standard part of C++. It is freely available under the <abbr title="Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</abbr> license.</li> <li><a id="ICU" href="https://icu.unicode.org">International Components for @@ -467,8 +465,8 @@ freely available under the <abbr>MIT</abbr> license.</li> <li>The <a href="https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/tzupdater-readme.html">TZUpdater tool</a> compiles <code><abbr>tz</abbr></code> source into the format used by -<a href="https://openjdk.java.net/">OpenJDK</a> and -<a href="https://jdk.java.net/">Oracle JDK</a>. +<a href="https://openjdk.org">OpenJDK</a> and +<a href="https://jdk.java.net">Oracle JDK</a>. Although its source code is proprietary, its executable is available under the <a href="https://www.oracle.com/a/tech/docs/tzupdater-lic.html">Java SE Timezone Updater License Agreement</a>.</li> @@ -490,7 +488,7 @@ are alternatives to TZUpdater. IANA Updater's license is unclear; ZIUpdater is licensed under the <abbr>GPL</abbr>.</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/MenoData/Time4A">Time4A: Advanced date and time library for Android</a> and -<a href="https://github.com/MenoData/Time4J/">Time4J: Advanced date, +<a href="https://github.com/MenoData/Time4J">Time4J: Advanced date, time and interval library for Java</a> compile <code><abbr>tz</abbr></code> source into a binary format. Time4A is available under the Apache License and Time4J is @@ -516,7 +514,7 @@ many of which also support runtimes lacking the <code>timeZone</code> option. href="https://github.com/formatjs/date-time-format-timezone"><code>Intl.DateTimeFormat</code> timezone polyfill</a> is freely available under a <abbr>BSD</abbr>-style license.</li> -<li>The <a href="https://date-fns.org/">date-fns</a> +<li>The <a href="https://date-fns.org">date-fns</a> library manipulates timezone-aware timestamps in browsers and in <a href="https://nodejs.org/en/">Node.js</a>. It is freely available under the <abbr>MIT</abbr> license.</li> @@ -552,9 +550,9 @@ objects</a> let programs access an abstract view of <code><abbr>tzdb</abbr></code> data, and are designed to replace <a href="https://codeofmatt.com/javascript-date-type-is-horribly-broken/">JavaScript's problematic <code>Date</code> objects</a> when working with dates and times. -<li><a href="https://github.com/JuliaTime/">JuliaTime</a> contains a +<li><a href="https://github.com/JuliaTime">JuliaTime</a> contains a compiler from <code><abbr>tz</abbr></code> source into -<a href="https://julialang.org/">Julia</a>. It is freely available +<a href="https://julialang.org">Julia</a>. It is freely available under the <abbr>MIT</abbr> license.</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/pavkam/tzdb"><abbr>TZDB</abbr> – <abbr>IANA</abbr> Time Zone Database for Delphi/<abbr @@ -565,7 +563,7 @@ as compiled by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_(IDE)">Delphi</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Pascal"><abbr>FPC</abbr></a>. It is freely available under a <abbr>BSD</abbr>-style license.</li> -<li><a href="http://pytz.sourceforge.net">pytz – World Timezone +<li><a href="https://pythonhosted.org/pytz/">pytz – World Timezone Definitions for Python</a> compiles <code><abbr>tz</abbr></code> source into <a href="https://www.python.org">Python</a>. It is freely available under a <abbr>BSD</abbr>-style license. @@ -649,7 +647,7 @@ that represent <code><abbr>tzdb</abbr></code> timezones. Python is freely available under the <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/license.html">Python Software Foundation License</a>. -A companion <a id="pypi-tzdata" href="https://pypi.org/">PyPI</a> module +A companion <a id="pypi-tzdata" href="https://pypi.org">PyPI</a> module <a href="https://pypi.org/project/tzdata/"><code>tzdata</code></a> supplies TZif data if the underlying system data cannot be found; it is freely available under the Apache License.</li> @@ -898,7 +896,7 @@ href="https://www.ptb.de/cms/en/fachabteilungen/abt4/fb-44/ag-441/realisation-of of Legal Time in Germany</a>.</dd> <dt>Israel</dt> <dd><a -href="https://tz.cs.huji.ac.il/">Israel Timezone Files</a> +href="https://tz.cs.huji.ac.il">Israel Timezone Files</a> lists official time-change announcements and laws since 1940, almost all in Hebrew.</dd> <dt>Malaysia</dt> @@ -1087,9 +1085,9 @@ is well-defined for sufficiently old timestamps.</li> <code>leap-seconds.list</code>, which lists the currently known leap seconds. The <abbr>IERS</abbr> maintains this file, and a copy is distributed by <code><abbr>tzdb</abbr></code> for use by <abbr>NTP</abbr> implementations like -<a href="https://www.ntp.org/">classic +<a href="https://www.ntp.org">classic <code><abbr title="Network Time Protocol Daemon">ntpd</abbr></code></a> -and <a href="https://ntpsec.org/">NTPsec</a>. +and <a href="https://ntpsec.org">NTPsec</a>. The <code><abbr>tz</abbr></code> database also distributes leap second information in a differently-formatted <code>leapseconds</code> text file, as well as in the "<code>right</code>" configuration in binary form; for -- 2.40.1

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Why is "AEST" the abbreviation for Australia/Sydney in 1900?
by Jonathan Wakely May 8, 2024

May 8, 2024

Given this snippet from tzdata.zi: Z Australia/Sydney 10:4:52 - LMT 1895 F 10 AU AE%sT 1971 R AU 1917 o - Ja 1 2s 1 D R AU 1917 o - Mar lastSu 2s 0 S R AU 1942 o - Ja 1 2s 1 D R AU 1942 o - Mar lastSu 2s 0 S R AU 1942 o - S 27 2s 1 D R AU 1943 1944 - Mar lastSu 2s 0 S R AU 1943 o - O 3 2s 1 D What should the abbreviation be for the zone in, say, 1900? Using glibc I get AEST: TZ=Australia/Sydney date --date="1900-01-01" Mon 1 Jan 00:00:00 AEST 1900 But I don't see any way to get "AEST" from the tzdata and the spec in the zic(8) man page. Prior to 1895 it is "LMT", and then from 1917-01-01 it's "AEDT", and from 1917-03-25 it's "AEST", but none of the Rule lines apply to dates before 1917, so what value of LETTER/S should be used for the AE%sT format in 1900? Glibc solves this by iterating through all the transitions for the AU rule until it finds a valid name for a transition to DST and a valid name for a transition out of DST, and then remembers those two names, which in this case gives AEDT (from 1917-01-01 to 1917-03-25) and AEST (from 1917-03-25 to 1942-01-01). Then when it finds the info for a date in 1900 it looks at the isdst field of struct tm for that date, and picks one of the two remembered names, which gives us "AEST". That seems like the correct result, but nothing in the zic man page (or any other docs I can find) says that is what's supposed to happen. My code for GCC's C++ library is an independent implementation based on the spec, and it has no way to produce "AEST" for 1900. It seems to me that either the spec should to do ... something ... so that a LETTER/S field for the Rule can be found, or there should be a Zone continuation line in the tzdata that explicitly says that Australia/Sydney is always on standard time for the period 1895-02-01 to 1917-01-01 and that the abbreviation is AEST (without any %s that needs to be expanded). So add the second line here: Z Australia/Sydney 10:4:52 - LMT 1895 F 10 - AEST 1917 10 AU AE%sT 1971 R AU 1917 o - Ja 1 2s 1 D R AU 1917 o - Mar lastSu 2s 0 S R AU 1942 o - Ja 1 2s 1 D R AU 1942 o - Mar lastSu 2s 0 S R AU 1942 o - S 27 2s 1 D R AU 1943 1944 - Mar lastSu 2s 0 S R AU 1943 o - O 3 2s 1 D I'm sure this question could also be asked of many other zones, Australia/Sydney just happens to be the one I was testing with and noticed that my code couldn't expand the %s in "AE%sT". Am I missing something that says to use "S" as the LETTER/S field for dates prior to the first DST transition in 1917? What logic do other C libraries use to get "AEST" here?

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Does Egypt spring forward tomorrow at 00:01 not 00:00?
by Paul Eggert April 25, 2024

April 25, 2024

Two recent news reports say that Egyptian clocks spring forward tomorrow at 00:01, not at 00:00 as per TZDB. Both cite Law No. 24 of 2023. Does anybody on this list have access to the text of that Egyptian law? I am unable to find a copy of that law online; <https://guides.loc.gov/law-egypt/legislative> points me at <https://www.egypt.gov.eg/english/laws/default.aspx> but www.egypt.gov.eg (41.33.95.166) is inaccessible to me (no packets seem to get through). I am mildly inclined to think that the distinction between 00:00 and 00:01 is being done by the news sources in question and not by the actual law. However, if someone can get a copy of the legislation that should be definitive. Here are the two sources giving spring-forward and fall-back times that differ by one minute from TZDB: * Egypt prepares to implement daylight saving time last Friday of April, Egypt Today, 2024-04-22 <https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/131747/Egypt-prepares-to-implement-day…> "... the current time used will be advanced by sixty minutes, starting at 12 midnight (00:01 a.m.) on Friday, April 26, until the end of the last Thursday of October at (23:59 p.m.)." * Belal Nawar, Daylight Savings in Egypt Starts on 26 April, Egyptian Streets, 2024-04-25 <https://egyptianstreets.com/2024/04/25/daylight-savings-in-egypt-starts-on-…> "The clock will be advanced by sixty minutes, starting from midnight (00:01 a.m.) on Friday 26 April, and will revert to standard time at the end of the last Thursday of October, precisely at 11:59 p.m. (23:59 p.m.)." I also see a couple of reports that we were one minute off in fall 2023: * Shereif Barakat, Egypt Bids Farewell to Daylight-Saving Time Tomorrow, Egyptian Streets, 2023-10-25 <https://egyptianstreets.com/2023/10/25/egypt-bids-farewell-to-daylight-savi…>. * Daylight Saving Time in Egypt Will End One Minute Before October 27th Scene Now, 2023-10-26 <https://scenenow.com/Buzz/Daylight-Saving-Time-in-Egypt-Will-End-One-Minute…>. On the other hand, other sources simply give transitions on the hour or on the day. Examples include <https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/1/522092/Egypt/Summer-Time-vs-pow…> and <https://cairoscene.com/Buzz/Daylight-Saving-Time-to-Start-in-Egypt-on-Frida…>. In particular <https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=34fe8046-f02b-4af1-a515-30cd…>, in which an Egyptian law firm summarizes Law No. 24 (issued 16 April 2023), merely gives day boundaries. So perhaps the 00:01 and 23:59 business is merely the news sources' trying to avoid confusion.

1 0

Asia/Gaza POSIX TZ string problem
by Z Meng Chen April 22, 2024

April 22, 2024

Hi, We obtained the *tzdata2024a* from IANA. Below is the Rule for *Asia/Gaza* extracted from *tzdata2024a*: * ...* *Rule Palestine 2022 2035 - Oct Sat<=30 2:00 0 -* *Rule Palestine 2023 only - Apr 29 2:00 1:00 S* *Rule Palestine 2024 only - Apr 20 2:00 1:00 S* *Rule Palestine 2025 only - Apr 12 2:00 1:00 S* ... *Asia/Gaza POSIX TZ string (generated by zic)*: EET-2EEST, M3.4.4/50,M10.4.4/50" The rule specifies that DST in 2024 starts on April 20th. Why then does the POSIX TZ string use M3.4.4? Is this a bug? or is there any other reason? Thanks. Best regards, Meng Chen

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request to update DST info for Timezone: Tehran/Iran
by Vajihe Bitarafan April 16, 2024

April 16, 2024

Hi Dear IANA, I am using some system and I encountered that in some situations Daylight Saving Time is not working correctly. >From 20 March 2023 , DST has been removed from government Policies and So from then there would not be any changes in Time. So Time zone Tehran/IRAN is +3:30 for all days of the year. I hope it will be reflected in timezone databases and I can see the Joda time is updated respectively. Thanks in advance for your help Best regards, Vajiheh Bitarafan

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Vadsø, Norway mayor wants 26-hour days
by Paul Eggert April 15, 2024

April 15, 2024

On March 20 Wenche Pedersen, the mayor of Vadsø municipality, Norway, asked[1] the European Commission to issue a directive allowing Norway to create a separate time zone for the northern part of Norway. Days in the new time zone would contain 26 hours instead of the usual 24. This request is part of the "MOREtime" project. Mayor Pedersen wrote: > ... we aim to celebrate and promote this unique way of life, offering individuals the opportunity to enjoy more quality time engaging in activities such as fishing, hunting, learning new languages, or simply being with loved ones. By having our own certified time zone within the EU, we hope to attract more young people, not only from Norway but also from around the world, to discover and settle in this adventurous area. Recently the mayor's proposal has been covered by several major news organizations. When asked how the 26-hour day would actually work, the mayor replied "We haven't thought a lot about that. The clock will go from 12 to 13 ... and we have to see how this will go. I don't think they're going to say yes so we haven't thought about all the details."[2] Longtime readers of the time zone mailing list might remember that in 2019 a resident of Sommarøy, Norway petitioned his parliamentarian to abolish civil time in his town, something that also made the news.[3] However, the Sommarøy proposal was by a private individual and was easily implementable via tzdata by creating a new UTC or LMT zone with abbreviation "-00" or "LMT", whereas the Vadsø proposal is by the mayor, and would require changes to tzcode and would therefore be considerably harder to support. Although it's unlikely that the Vadsø proposal will go anywhere, it's helpful to think of how timekeeping changes like this might be accommodated by the TZDB project, as similar proposals might happen in the future. I see several ways to implement 26-hour days, falling into two major categories. Category I: Shorten civil-time hours so that there are 26 civil-time hours in a standard-length (SI) day. Four possible ways to do this are: A. Civil-time seconds are 12/13 s (i.e., 12/13 of an SI second, or about 0.923 s), so that civil-time minutes and hours are both 12/13 of their SI counterparts. B. Civil-time seconds are the same as before, but civil-time minutes are 60 * 12/13 s (i.e., about 55.38 s). C. Civil-time seconds and minutes are the same as before, but civil-time hours are 60 * 12/13 min (i.e., about 55.38 SI minutes). D. Civil-time minutes are 60 * sqrt(12/13) s (about 57.65 s), and civil-time hours are 60 * sqrt(12/13) civil-time minutes (i.e., about 57.65 civil-time minutes). Category II: Adjust day lengths so that all or most days contain 26 SI hours. Three possibilities here are: E. Civil-time days are 26 SI hours, and the calendar gradually falls further and further behind the Gregorian calendar. F. Civil-time days are 26 SI hours, but skip every 13th day so that days stay roughly synchronized with the Gregorian calendar. G. At the end of every day, move clocks backward two hours, from 24:00 to 22:00, so that timestamps from 22:00:00 through 23:59:59 repeat. Do this consistently for eleven days, thus moving clocks backward a total of 22 hours. On the twelfth day move clocks forward 22 hours instead, from 24:00 to 22:00 the next day. Repeat this cycle indefinitely. This way, eleven days out of thirteen contain 26 hours, and the next two days combined also contain 26 hours - 24 hours in the twelfth day and 2 hours in the thirteenth. Of these methods something like (G) would be the most compatible with computerized timekeeping, as (G) conforms to POSIX-1.202x Draft 4.1[4] whereas (A) through (F) do not. (G) avoids timestamps like 25:30; G's hours, minutes or seconds are all of the usual lengths; and (G) contains only transitions that are like daylight-saving transitions that computerized timekeeping can already deal with. Although a downside of (G) is that at times the sun will be at its zenith at midnight, I assume Vadsø residents are already accustomed to midnight suns so this disadvantage is relatively minor for them. Another downside of (G) is that clocks will never go "from 12 to 13" as the mayor requested, but given the major technical difficulties of (A) through (F) I hope the mayor would appreciate that (G) may be the best we can practically hope for in today's standardized and computerized world. Unfortunately even (G) would require some changes to tzcode and tzdata to become practical, and it would take many years for these changes to propagate to devices in common use in Vadsø. So, unless Vadsø residents are prepared to change their clocks by hand every day for the next several years, it does not appear that the mayor's proposal will be practical any time soon. I am sending this email to the time zone mailing list, as perhaps someone on the list can think of even better ways to implement the mayor's request. I am also cc'ing this email to Mayor Pedersen to give her a heads-up about this analysis, should it ever be needed in Vadsø. [1]: https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/files/17848798/18066114/57109/no [2]: https://www.politico.eu/article/norway-arctic-region-asks-eu-commission-for… [3]: https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2019-June/028154.html [4]: https://www.opengroup.org/austin/

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