Kerry Kimbrough is not on the time zone mailing list; direct replies
appropriately.
--ado
-----Original Message-----
From: Kerry Kimbrough [mailto:kkimbrough@clearcommerce.com]
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2002 10:57 AM
To: 'tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov'
Subject: Time zone equality?
Help! Can someone explain the algorithm for TimeZone::operator==? That is,
how do you know if two time zones are the same or different?
I'm motivated by a UI design issue that's become hot around here. We allow
users to select a time zone from a list. In our case, the list come from the
ICU package, which I understand uses the same list as the Olsen package.
Trouble is, this list is huge and bewildering, with a great deal of apparent
redundancy. For example, there are 37 different time zones listed at
GMT-04:00. This makes for a usability issue, as it becomes hard to search
and confidently select the correct choice. And many are convinced that the
long is just wrong because they can see a much shorter one used in Windows.
We want to generate a shorter list, but we're also reluctant to just throw
out legitimate choices. If two time zones are equivalent, then it's OK to
drop one from the list. But how can you tell? How does Windows do it?
----
Regards,
Kerry
