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ISO 3166 and the "tz" Database
by Dave Skinner May 10, 1997

May 10, 1997

First of all, in case you were not aware of the fact, 3 of the 238 different ISO 3166 "countries" listed in file "tzdata/iso3166.tab" have no corresponding zone in the "tz" database. They are BV Bouvet Island HM Heard Island & McDonald Islands TP East Timor Bouvet Island is described in file "tzdata/antarctica" as # Norway - territories # Bouvet (uninhabited) Heard Island & McDonald Islands is described in file "tzdata/antarctica" as # Australia - territories # Heard Island, McDonald Islands No other information about Heard Island & McDonald Islands is provided. As for "East Timor", it is an area that both Indonesia and Portugal claim sovereignty over which is not recognized by the United Nations, or so says the 1996 edition of the CIA World Factbook. I can find no reference to "Timor", let alone "East Timor", in any of the "tzdata/*" files except, of course, "tzdata/iso3166.tab". Next, if the "tz" database is REALLY going to adhere to ISO 3166, then the definitions of the various zones should be grouped by the "countries" defined therein. Currently, this is not the case. The following is a complete list of the ISO 3166 countries that have multiple zone entries in the "tz" database. AQ Antarctica AR Argentina AU Australia BR Brazil CA Canada CL Chile CN China EC Ecuador ES Spain FM Micronesia GB Britain (UK) GL Greenland ID Indonesia IL Israel JP Japan KI Kiribati KZ Kazakhstan MH Marshall Islands ML Mali MX Mexico MY Malaysia NZ New Zealand PF French Polynesia PT Portugal RU Russia SJ Svalbard & Jan Mayen UA Ukraine UM US minor outlying islands US United States ZR Zaire There are 30 of them. As reported in my most recent previous email, 23 of these "countries" currently have multiple internal time zones, i.e. multiple areas that differ in how and when they observe the time that they do, but that is irrelevent here. By inspection, I found that the country groupings in the following five continent files tzdata/antarctica tzdata/asia tzdata/australasia tzdata/europe tzdata/northamerica do not, in general, follow the ISO 3166 groupings identified in file "tzdata/zone.tab" from which the above list was extracted. In particular, the following differences have been identified. AQ Antarctica Zone Indian/Kerguelen, that is defined in file "tzdata/antarctica" as part of the Antarctica definitions therein, is part of the "country" identified by the 2-letter country code "TF" for "French Southern & Antarctic Lands" with respect to ISO 3166, which does not appear in the above list. CN China China is identified as the "People's Republic of China" in file "tzdata/asia". This compares to just "China" with respect to ISO 3166. GB Britain (UK) Great Britain is identified as "United Kingdom" in file "tzdata/europe". This compares to "Britain (UK)" with respect to ISO 3166. Zone Europe/Dublin, that is defined in file "tzdata/europe" as part of the so-called "United Kingdom" definitions therein, is part if the country identified by the 2-letter country code "IE" for "Ireland" with respect to ISO 3166, which does not appear in the above list. GL Greenland Zones America/Thule, America/Godthab, and America/Scoresbysund, that are defined in file "tzdata/europe" as part of the Denmark definitions therein, are part of the "country" identified by the 2-letter country code "GL" for "Greenland" with respect to ISO 3166. Zone Atlantic/Faeroe, that is defined in file "tzdata/europe" as part of the Denmark definitions therein, is part of the "country" identified by the 2-letter country code "FO" for "Faeroe Islands" with respect to ISO 3166, which does not appear in the above list. Zone Europe/Copenhagen, that is defined in file "tzdata/europe" as part of the Denmark definitions therein, is part of the country of "Denmark" with its 2-letter country code "DK", with respect to ISO 3166, which does not appear in the above list. IL Israel Zone Asia/Gaza is defined in file "tzdata/asia" as part of a separate set of definitions for "Palestine" therein instead of as part of the corresponding Israel definitions. Yet, Asia/Gaza is part of the country identified by the 2-letter country code "IL" for "Israel" with respect to ISO 3166. SJ Svalbard & Jan Mayen Zone Atlantic/Jan_Mayen, that is defined in file "tzdata/europe" as part of the Norway definitions therein, is part of the "country" identified by the 2-letter country code "SJ" for "Svalbard & Jan Mayen" with respect to ISO 3166. Zone Arctic/Longyearbyen, that is linked to Europe/Oslo in file "tzdata/europe" as part of the Norway definitions therein, is part of the "country" identified by the 2-letter country code "SJ" for "Svalbard & Jan Mayen" with respect to ISO 3166. Zone Europe/Oslo, that is defined in file "tzdata/europe" as part of the Norway definitions therein, is part of the country of Norway with its 2-letter country code "NO" with respect to ISO 3166, which does not appear in the above list. UM US minor outlying islands Zones Pacific/Johnston and Pacific/Wake are individually defined in file "tzdata/australasia" instead of being grouped together under a set of definitions labeled "US Minor Outlying Islands", as would be expected by being part of the "country" identified by the 2-letter country code "UM" for "US minor outlying islands" with respect to ISO 3166. Zone Pacific/Midway is defined in file "tzdata/northamerica" as part of the United States definitions therein instead of in file "tzdata/australasia" along with zones Pacific/Johnston and Pacific/Wake as part of a set of definitions labeled "US Minor Outlying Islands" as would be indicated by being part of the country identified by the 2-letter country code "UM" for "US minor outlying islands" with respect to ISO 3166. KP Korea (North) and KR Korea (South) Zones Asia/Pyongyang and Asia/Seoul are defined in file "tzdata/asia" as part of the "Korea" definitions therein, but there should be separate sets of Korea (North) definitions, which would include zone Asia/Pyongyang, and Korea (South) definitions, which would include zone Asia/Seoul. This is what separate 2-letter country codes "KP" for "Korea (North)" and "KR" for "Korea (South)" indicate with respect to ISO 3166. Dave Skinner dave(a)kirdu.jpl.nasa.gov

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Re: Daylight Extra and UK General Election
by peter＠aldie.co.uk May 9, 1997

May 9, 1997

Chris Carrier <72157.3334(a)CompuServe.COM> wrote: > As most of you know, on May 1 the United Kingdom had a General Election for > Parliament and Labor got in with a substantial majority. Chris, I'm surprised. I wouldn't have thought you would have missed a detail like this. It is the Labour Party, currently trading under the brand name New Labour. :-) > The results of one race might be interesting to some of us: the seat held by > John Butterfill (Con., Bournemouth West). Butterfill in 1995 introduced a > bill, known as the Daylight Extra Bill, which would have put the UK on summer > time in winter and double summer time in summer, to synchronise it with the > rest of the EU. There was an attempt to force it out of committee; this > requires the assent of 100 MPs (out of, I believe, a total number of 630) and > the Bill received the support of 93. What actually happened was there were insufficient MPs to force a vote on closing the debate, so a vote could be taken on the Bill itself. Only 93 were present, so presumably the debate rambled on without coming to any conclusion. This was at the stage called second reading, which is before the Bill would have been considered in detail by a committee of MPs. There were 650 MPs in the old Parliament, 659 in the new one. The fact that only 93 were present out of 650 was not particularly suprising. There aren't actually enough seats for all of them anyway. > What I would like to ask is if anyone saw anything concerning Daylight Extra > during the General Election as a whole or in Bournemouth West specifically. Much as we might wish it otherwise, discussion of the policies relating to time of any of the major parties was notable only by its complete absence. A `grep -i time' through the manifesto text of each of the three major parties (Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat) finds nothing relevent at all. A search though The Times between 1 March 97 and 30 April 97 for `daylight extra' also shows no hits. I didn't read all the election coverage in the papers I read but I didn't spot anything; neither did I hear anything on radio news. I admit I am a long way from Bournmouth, but I doubt it was much different down there. People here may get worked up about proposed changes to Summer Time arrangements and changes of timezone when a specific proposal appears but otherwise it really isn't an issue at all. Peter Ilieve peter(a)aldie.co.uk

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Daylight Extra and UK General Election
by Chris Carrier May 9, 1997

May 9, 1997

As most of you know, on May 1 the United Kingdom had a General Election for Parliament and Labor got in with a substantial majority. The results of one race might be interesting to some of us: the seat held by John Butterfill (Con., Bournemouth West). Butterfill in 1995 introduced a bill, known as the Daylight Extra Bill, which would have put the UK on summer time in winter and double summer time in summer, to synchronise it with the rest of the EU. There was an attempt to force it out of committee; this requires the assent of 100 MPs (out of, I believe, a total number of 630) and the Bill received the support of 93. (Note to anyone: I would appreciate clarification/correction to any of this.) I was able to get the results of Bournemouth West last weekend, and Butterfill managed to retain his seat, but he lost 14 percentage points, which was comparable to the Conservative loss of support in the rest of the UK, so his sponsorship of Daylight Extra didn't seem to either help or hurt him. What I would like to ask is if anyone saw anything concerning Daylight Extra during the General Election as a whole or in Bournemouth West specifically. Chris Carrier

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Re: World Timezone Map
by Dave Skinner May 9, 1997

May 9, 1997

I was ever so glad to receive the recent email fro Chuck Ellis of MaconUSA, LLC. I have been busy behind the scenes collecting and organizing the boundary data for the time zone map capability previously discussed in the tz archive at elsie.nci.nih.gov. This was without the knowledge of, or data from, maconusa.com. I wanted to respond to Chuck Ellis' email in a timely fashion, and in lieu of what I read in that email, I wanted to introduce my internal time zone boundary numbering scheme for the current set of countries with multiple internal time zones that I have been working on to facilitate discussion of the status and accuracy of the boundary data associated with these key otherwise missing boundaries. Following up on the ISO-3166 work already done with respect to the Time Zone Database (tz), I organized my efforts around that standard as well. So, high level compatibility with maconusa.com should already be achieved. Likewise, I gathered the 1:1,000,000 scale Digital Chart of the World (DCW) data and augmented it with 1:100,000 USGS state and county data from the 1990 census. I realized that many of the poltical boundaries had changed since 1992, when the version of DCW to which I obtained access was released. I was hoping to update that with the Vector Smart Map Level 0 (VMap0) data once I could get my hands on it. I was also prepared to work backward from the .pdf map files that are posted by the CIA as part of their web page providing access to "The World Factbook 1996", as a last resort. There is an actual a time zone map of the world published there as well, for what it is worth. This web page is located at or near http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/nsolo/wfb-all.htm AS Chuck Ellis' email arrived, I still did not have accurate data for, or descriptions of, the time zone boundaries inside of countries with multiple time zones, although boundaries 05.01, 06.01, 07.01, 15.01, and 17.01 in the attached table may simply be the distinction between the mainland and the island(s) in question. As for viewing map data, I acquired a copy of GRASS and Grassland (a beta copy for SunOS5 from LAS, Inc. of Canada of the latter) which permit the viewing of VPF (DCW, VMap0) and SDTS (USGS) file formats. I am really new at all of this. So, exactly how to proceed to take any of the various .zip files at maconusa.com and to make use of these Unix-based viewers would be appreciated. (I would prefer to stay Unix-based, if that is at all possible.) The goal, as Chuck Ellis observed, should most definitely be to create a set of time zone polygons, because the ability to automatically update the gazetteer whenever a change is introduced is straightforward, simple, and an already solved problem with already written available code. Anyhow, here is the ISO-3166 sorted list of internal time zone boundaries to which I have been alluding. Of the 30 ISO-3166 "countries" with multiple zones in the tz database, there are only 23 which currently have multiple time zones. These 23 countries have 69 internal boundaries by my current tally. As we are all aware, multiple time zones include the distinction between the boundaries when Daylight Savings Time is in effect, e.g. the distinction between the U.S. Eastern Time Zone with and without that portion of Indiana that does not observe daylight savings time attached in the standard time October-to-April period (boundary 22.07) and in the daylight time April-to-October period (boundary 22.08), respectively, of any given year. Note that Antarctica and Greenland boundaries isolate the tz zones in question from the rest of the land mass, as opposed to separating a series of mostly vertical strips from each other like the boundaries of the other 21 ISO-3166 "countries" listed below. Dave Skinner dave(a)kirdu.jpl.nasa.gov 818-354-0114 (voice) 818-393-9900 (fax) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01. AQ Antarctica ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.01 |Antarctica/Palmer --4:00 ChileAQ -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.02 |Antarctica/Mawson +6:00 None -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.03 |Antarctica/Casey +8:00 None -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.04 |Antarctica/DumontDUrville +10:00 None -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.05 |Antarctica/McMurdo +12:00 NZAQ -------------------------------------------------------------| 02. AU Australia Indian/Christmas +7:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 02.01 Australia, Western Australia/Perth +8:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 02.02 Australia, Central Australia/Adelaide +9:30 AS ----------------------------------------------------- 02.03 Australia/Darwin +9:30 Aus --> None ------------------------------------------------------------- 02.04 Australia, Eastern Australia/Brisbane +10:00 AQ --> None ----------------------------------------------------- 02.05 Australia/Hobart +10:00 AT ----------------------------------------------------- 02.06 Australia/Sydney +10:00 AN ------------------------------------------------------------- 02.07 Australia/Lord_Howe +10:30 LH 03. BR Brazil America/Porto_Acre --5:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 03.01 Brazil, Western America/Cuiaba --4:00 Brazil ----------------------------------------------------- 03.02 America/Manaus --4:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 03.03 Brazil, Eastern America/Fortaleza --3:00 None ----------------------------------------------------- 03.04 America/Sao_Paulo --3:00 Brazil ------------------------------------------------------------- 03.05 America/Noronha --2:00 None 04. CA Canada Canada, Pacific America/Vancouver --8:00 Vanc ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.01 Canada, Mountain America/Dawson_Creek --7:00 None ----------------------------------------------------- 04.02 America/Edmonton --7:00 Edm ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.03 Canada, Central America/Regina --6:00 None ----------------------------------------------------- 04.04 America/Winnipeg --6:00 Winn ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.05 Canada, Eastern America/Montreal --5:00 Mont ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.06 Canada, Atlantic America/Halifax --4:00 Halifax ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.07 Canada, Newfoundland America/St_Johns --3:30 StJohns 05. CL Chile Pacific/Easter --6:00 Chile ------------------------------------------------------------- 05.01 America/Santiago --4:00 Chile 06. EC Ecuador Pacific/Galapagos --6:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 06.01 America/Guayaquil --5:00 None 07. ES Spain Atlantic/Canary +0:00 EU ------------------------------------------------------------- 07.01 Europe/Madrid +1:00 EU 08. FM Micronesia Pacific/Yap +10:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 08.01 Pacific/Ponape (Pohnpei) +11:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 08.02 Pacific/Kosrae +12:00 None 09. GL Greenland ------------------------------------------------------------- 09.01 |America/Thule --4:00 Thule -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 09.02 |America/Godthab (Nuuk) --3:00 EU -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 09.03 |America/Scoresbysund (Ittoqqortoormiit) --1:00 EU -------------------------------------------------------------| 10. ID Indonesia Asia/Jakarta +7:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 10.01 Asia/Ujung_Pandang +8:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 10.02 Asia/Jayapura +9:00 None 11. JP Japan Asia/Ishigaki +8:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 11.01 Asia/Tokyo +9:00 None 12. KI Kiribati Pacific/Tarawa +12:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 12.01 Pacific/Enderbury +13:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 12.02 Pacific/Kiritimati +14:00 None 13. KZ Kazakhstan Asia/Aqtau +4:00 E--Eur ------------------------------------------------------------- 13.01 Asia/Aqtobe +5:00 E--Eur ------------------------------------------------------------- 13.02 Asia/Alma--Ata +6:00 E-Eur 14. MX Mexico Mexico, Pacific America/Tijuana --8:00 Mexico ------------------------------------------------------------- 14.01 Mexico, Mountain America/Mazatlan --7:00 Mexico ------------------------------------------------------------- 14.02 Mexico, Central America/Mexico_City --6:00 Mexico 15. NZ New_Zealand Pacific/Auckland +12:00 NZ ------------------------------------------------------------- 15.01 Pacific/Chatham +12:45 Chatham 16. PF French_Polynesia Pacific/Tahiti --10:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 16.01 Pacific/Marquesas --9:30 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 16.02 Pacific/Gambier --9:00 None 17. PT Portugal Atlantic/Azores --1:00 EU ------------------------------------------------------------- 17.01 Europe/Lisbon +0:00 EU 18. RU Russia Europe/Kaliningrad +2:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.01 Europe/Moscow +3:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.02 Europe/Samara +4:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.03 Europe/Yekaterinburg +5:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.04 Asia/Novosibirsk +6:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.05 Asia/Krasnoyarsk +7:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.06 Asia/Irkutsk +8:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.07 Asia/Yakutsk +9:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.08 Asia/Vladivostok +10:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.09 Asia/Magadan +11:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.10 Asia/Kamchatka +12:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.11 Asia/Anadyr +13:00 Russia 19. SJ Svalbard_&_Jan_Mayen Atlantic/Jan_Mayen (Svalbard) --1:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 19.01 Arctic/Longyearbyen +1:00 EU 20. UA Ukraine Europe/Kiev +2:00 EU ------------------------------------------------------------- 20.01 Europe/Simferopol +3:00 Crimea 21. UM US_minor_outlying_islands Pacific/Midway --11:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 21.01 United_States, Samoa Pacific/Johnston --10:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 21.02 Pacific/Wake +12:00 None 22. US United_States United_States, Hawaii--Aleutian America/Adak --10:00 US ----------------------------------------------------- 22.01 Pacific/Honolulu --10:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.02 United_States, Alaska America/Anchorage --9:00 US ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.03 United_States, Pacific America/Los_Angeles --8:00 US ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.04 United_States, Mountain America/Denver --7:00 US ----------------------------------------------------- 22.05 America/Phoenix --7:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.06 United_States, Central America/Chicago --6:00 US ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.07 United_States, Eastern America/Indianapolis --5:00 None ----------------------------------------------------- 22.08 America/New_York --5:00 US 23. ZR Zaire Africa/Kinshasa +1:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 23.01 Africa/Lubumbashi +2:00 None

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World Timezone Map
by Chuck Ellis May 8, 1997

May 8, 1997

Gentlemen: I have completed a Beta of a 1:1,000,000-scale world vector map of timezones and associated attribute data, including applicable Rule, ISO Country Codes, etc. In reviewing the tz archive postings, it became clear that some of you are working towards the same end. Therefore, I am posting the Beta to our company's FTP site in the hope that we can join forces to accelerate the development of this most useful map and data set. Background: I am a partner in MaconUSA, LLC, a digital mapping company based in Boston whose chief products are digital vector maps (with attached attribute data) of the world's political, administrative, civil, postal and telcomm boundaries. MaconUSA is the US "sister" company to Macon GmbH (Waghausel, Germany), which manufactures a suite of desktop mapping products for the European market. While we distribute primarily into the GIS market, our maps are for the most part focused on demographic, sales and marketing applications. We have developed comprehensive boundary and features sets for Europe and the US, and are in the process of completing a Mexican/Caribbean/Central American/South American Map set. We are Data Partners to virtually all of the major GIS application companies, such as ESRI, MapInfo, AutoDesk, Tactician, et al; our European maps are a (new) free inclusion in all of ESRI's shipping products. We have fielded numerous requests over the past year from our customers for both an accurate/current worldwide timezone map, and an equivalent map delineating telephone country and area code boundaries; the timezone map is the completion of part one of this development effort. While we are obviously a for-profit company, we are interested in a cooperative and public-interest effort regarding the timezone map. I would envision such cooperation including joint posting/maintenance of a timezone-map web page freely accessible to the worldwide public, participation in ongoing standards-oriented work (such as it is or may become), etc. The TZ archives maintained at elsie.nci.nih.gov appear to be as close to a defacto standards repository as a non-authoritative listserv can be; in the absence of any greater authority, we would prefer to work actively with it. Timezone Map: Three compressed files are posted at ftp://maconusa.com -- timezone.zip timezon2.zip timezone3.zip The first file (timezone.zip) contains timezone.* (the primary timezone vector map and its attached attribute database); a rough readme.txt file for overview; tz_struc.txt which describes the attribute database in detail; city_550.* (the "top" 550 cities in the world as map points with tz atributes); mid_mif.txt (which is a detailed description of MapInfo's ASCII vector map-file format that all boundary, point, and other map layers are written to, and is enough of a lingua franca to be transportable across many GIS and CAD applications). The second file (timezon2.zip) contains city_11k.* (a gazetteer of the "top" 11,000 cities in the world as map points with tz atributes); airport.* (a second gazetteer of 14,000+ airports worldwide as map points with tz attributes); ports.* (a third gazetteer of 4,500+ Ports around the world plotted as map points with tz attributes); overlay.* (a simple grid of the old 1884 GMT timezone lines for reference viewing; and ????struc.txt files detailing the file layouts for the gazetteer attribute databases. The third file (timezon3.zip) contains city_80k.* (a massive gazetteer of 80,000 cities around the world plotted as map points with associated tz attributes). All three files are password protected. The password is: proeger The files have been zipped with pkzip v. 2.04g Map Description: The map is based upon Macon's own ISO-3166 standard world map, a commercial product that is updated semi-annually. In turn, Macon's world map is based upon the original 1:1,000,000 DCW with a significant number of boundaries redrawn and/or updated to reflect current ISO-3166 definitions. The Datum is WGS1984; this particular map is current to December 31, 1996. The map was created in MapInfo, and has not yet been cleaned/processed with ArcInfo into a topological coverage (this will happen soon); the polygons are drawn in an essentially connect-the-dots sequence with preliminary shared-border snapping and de-duping. Please refer to the mid_mif.txt file for a detailed description of MapInfo's ASCII vector format. The 34 unique UTC-Offsets have been assigned colors according to a west-to-east spectral graduation using the Netscape 256-color chart (which is also Windows-compliant); these can be ignored or changed at will. The gazetteer points are derived from different sources. A significant number of just-onshore points appear slightly offshore due to being digitized from lower-scale maps and/or different datums; these have been properly attributed with tz data, but will be positionally adjusted in the final release. Nevertheless, the gazetteer collection has been included at this time because it is powerful testament to the primary advantage of defining detailed timezone polygons: a simple point-in-polygon operation can in one pass assign tz attributes to a virtually limitless number of map objects. Specific Timezone Notes: We have had to take some liberties in this beta version: 1) Asia/Timor -- A specific objective in producing this file was maintenance of strict ISO-3166 compliance; in this case, the principal requirement was simply including every country in the ISO roster. To wit, we added a new timezone, Asia/Timor, to represent East Timor. It has been assigned the (default) rule, No_DST, which matches its neighboring zone, Asia/Ujung_Pandang. 2) Atlantic/Madeira -- Even though Atlantic/Madeira is a duplicate of Europe/Lisbon, it was left as a distinct zone for cartographic purposes; linking far-flung polygons into one object can cause problems in many mapping applications when, for example, centroids are calculated, labels are auto-placed, or MBR (minimum-bounding-rectangle) calculations are involved. 3) America/Dawson_Creek -- this boundary is approximate only, due to a lack of any refining information. 4) America/Regina, America/Winnipeg -- these boundaries obey all available notes from the archives, but are simply invented using provincial sub-boundaries and meridians/parallels in the absence of any meaningful feature definitions 5) America/Scoresbysund -- this boundary is approximate only, albeit probably very close 6) America/Thule -- same as (4) above 7) Asia/Aqtau, Asia/Aqtobe, Asia/Alma-Ata -- these boundaries were created using current provincial sub-boundaries in the absence of any refining data 8) Africa/Kinshasha, Africa/Lubumbashi -- same as (7) above 9) Asia/Irkutsk, Asia/Yakutsk, Asia/Vladivostok, Asia/Magadan -- the boundaries between these zones are not well-defined; we used a CIA map from 1994 at a scale of 1:5,000,000 to approximate these 10) America/Manaus, America/Fortaleza -- we defaulted the split between these two zones as a simple east-west meridian dividing Para 11) The attached tz attribute database defaults the ending year for currently-active Rules to 1999 for now to ease the burden on application developers using the data; this is obviously quite artificial, and any suggestions for how to handle this would be appreciated 12) The default Rule for countries with no active DST assignations is "No_DST" 13) Historical Zone and Rule information is for the most part not included; only in the case of a current Zone using a current Rule with a (provided) onset-date was the start-year included; we are happy to change this based on agreed-upon suggestions, but the drawing of historical zones is well beyond our scope. Viewing the Timezone Map: We apologize for not providing the tz map in a directly-viewable format just yet. We are currently embedding the map with its associated database into an applet which I will upload in the coming weeks. Those wishing to view the map at this time have the following alternatives: a) Use MapInfo-- both the MapInfo Desktop and MapInfo Professional products can import mid-mif files directly, since it is the intermediate ASCII format for both applications b) Use ArcView, BusinessMap, ArcInfo, or ArcCAD-- all ESRI products can import mid-mif files directly c) Use Microsoft Excel Version 7 or higher, or Microsoft Office95 or higher-- these newer versions of Excel contain a feature called DataMap which can draw, color and query a MapInfo-BINARY format map directly; I will be posting the timezone map in this format in the next day or so as timezon4.zip at ftp://www.maconusa.com d) Use Any CAD Software-- I will be posting a .DXF version of the map in the next day or so as timezon5.zip at ftp://maconusa.com e) Write Your Own Viewer-- the mid-mif ASCII vector map format is quite simple, though with all of the applications out there capable of directly handling mid-mif, you're probably better off waiting for the Excel or CAD versions to post in the next day or so, or our own embedded viewer to post within the next couple of weeks. Continued Development: We are quite committed to upgrading, updating, and generally improving this map. Any specific zone comments relating to how/where the boundaries are drawn are most useful if they provide or describe (in order of preference): the actual map, or a reference to where we can find it; underlying sub-boundaries (such as administrative or statistical or poitical or postal or municipal) comprising the zone; major land or water features which delineate a boundary or part of boundary; a "legal" description (such as "follow rickety river six miles south, then east along provincial boundary..."); corrections/additions/deletions to the list of cities/towns included in a zone (you may find the gazetteer of 80,000 cities posted as noted above useful as a starter here). Comments or Questions: Please contact Chuck Ellis, at MaconUSA, 214 Lincoln Street, Suite 115, Allston, MA 02134, Tel 617-254-2295, Fax 617-254-2883, e-mail chuck_ellis(a)msn.com. Respects, Chuck Ellis VP, R&D MaconUSA, LLC

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new versions of tzcode and tzdata
by ado May 3, 1997

May 3, 1997

The files ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzcode1997e.tar.gz and ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata1997f.tar.gz are now available. These incorporate the fixes to zic's error handling that were recently circulated on the tz list, as well as changes inspired by the item circulated on Slovenia. The description of Web resources has been htmlified for browsing convenience, and a new piece of tz-related music has been added to the "Music" file. --ado

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-v option support
by tpm＠hi.com May 1, 1997

May 1, 1997

The zic(8) man page describes the -v option as -v Complain if a year that appears in a data file is out- side the range of years representable by time(2) values. However this functionality appears to have been removed from the code. It is not clear whether this description should have been removed from the man page or whether the functionality was unintentionally removed from the code. If the general consensus is that the man page is correct then some code similar to the following could be added to implement it. I am open to issues and alternatives. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *************** *** 129,134 **** --- 263,269 ---- static void usage P((void)); static void writezone P((const char * name)); static int yearistype P((int year, const char * type)); + static void year_noise_check P((int year)); #if !(HAVE_STRERROR - 0) static char * strerror P((int)); *************** *** 141,148 **** --- 276,285 ---- static int linenum; static time_t max_time; static int max_year; + static int max_year_representable; static time_t min_time; static int min_year; + static int min_year_representable; static int noise; static const char * rfilename; static int rlinenum; *************** *** 649,654 **** --- 824,831 ---- } min_year = TM_YEAR_BASE + gmtime(&min_time)->tm_year; max_year = TM_YEAR_BASE + gmtime(&max_time)->tm_year; + min_year_representable = min_year; + max_year_representable = max_year; } *************** *** 1278,1288 **** rp->r_yrtype = NULL; else { if (rp->r_loyear == rp->r_hiyear) { ! error(_("typed single year")); return; } rp->r_yrtype = ecpyalloc(typep); } if (rp->r_loyear < min_year && rp->r_loyear > 0) min_year = rp->r_loyear; /* --- 1463,1478 ---- rp->r_yrtype = NULL; else { if (rp->r_loyear == rp->r_hiyear) { ! error(MSGSTR(ONEYEAR,"typed single year")); return; } rp->r_yrtype = ecpyalloc(typep); } + if (noise) + { + year_noise_check(rp->r_loyear); + year_noise_check(rp->r_hiyear); + } if (rp->r_loyear < min_year && rp->r_loyear > 0) min_year = rp->r_loyear; /* *************** *** 2169,2179 **** l = i; if ((i < 0 && l >= 0) || (i == 0 && l != 0) || (i > 0 && l <= 0)) { (void) fprintf(stderr, ! _("%s: %d did not sign extend correctly\n"), progname, i); (void) exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } return l; } /* --- 2365,2399 ---- l = i; if ((i < 0 && l >= 0) || (i == 0 && l != 0) || (i > 0 && l <= 0)) { (void) fprintf(stderr, ! MSGSTR(BADSIGN,"%s: %d did not sign extend correctly.\n"), progname, i); (void) exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } return l; + } + + static void + year_noise_check(year) + int year; + { + if ( ( (year < min_year_representable) || + (year > max_year_representable) ) && + ( (year != INT_MIN) && (year != INT_MAX) ) ) + { + static char *format; + static char *message; + + if (!format) + { + format = MSGSTR(UNREPYEAR, "unrepresentable year: %d"); + } + if (!message) + { + message = emalloc(strlen(format) + 32); + } + (void) sprintf(message, format, year); + warning(message); + } } /* <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Note that MSGSTR() is a simple macro that invokes catgets(3) on systems which support the X/Open interfaces. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Patrick Murphy tpm(a)hi.com Voice: (617) 890-0444 Hitachi Computer Products Fax: (617) 890-4998 1601 Trapelo Rd., Waltham, MA 02154, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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warning string missing
by tpm＠hi.com May 1, 1997

May 1, 1997

The warning() function in zic.c contains the following code. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> static void warning(string) const char * const string; { char * cp; cp = ecpyalloc("warning: "); cp = ecatalloc(cp, string); error(string); ifree(cp); --errors; } <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< It appears the argument to error() should be cp instead of string. -- ------ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Patrick Murphy tpm(a)hi.com Voice: (617) 890-0444 Hitachi Computer Products Fax: (617) 890-4998 1601 Trapelo Rd., Waltham, MA 02154, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Missing break statement
by tpm＠hi.com April 30, 1997

April 30, 1997

In the rulesub() function in zic.c there is the following switch statement. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> switch (lowerit(*ep)) { case 's': /* Standard */ rp->r_todisstd = TRUE; rp->r_todisgmt = FALSE; *ep = '\0'; break; case 'w': /* Wall */ rp->r_todisstd = FALSE; rp->r_todisgmt = FALSE; *ep = '\0'; case 'g': /* Greenwich */ case 'u': /* Universal */ case 'z': /* Zulu */ rp->r_todisstd = TRUE; rp->r_todisgmt = TRUE; *ep = '\0'; break; } <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< It appears the break statement is missing from the end of the 'w' case. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Patrick Murphy tpm(a)hi.com Voice: (617) 890-0444 Hitachi Computer Products Fax: (617) 890-4998 1601 Trapelo Rd., Waltham, MA 02154, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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zoneinfo package under IRIX?
by Mark White April 29, 1997

April 29, 1997

Hi-- I've been writing some code to convert between timezones on Linux, using zoneinfo (compiling with -lz) Basically, I create a struct tm, populate it with user entered data, then t = mktime(tm); setenv("TZ","Australia/Brisbane",1); tzset(); newtm = localtime(&t); /* then later...*/ setenv("TZ","Australia/Brisbane",1) tzset(); newtm = localtime(&t); I'm compiling with cc, linking in (-lz -L/usr/local/lib) the libz.a, which compiles cleanly under IRIX 5.3. This code works *perfectly* under Linux (redhat 2.0.18). Am I missing something about the zoneinfo package? Thanks in advance, Mark White Tandem Computers Int'l Inc. m.white(a)pacific.tandem.com +61 4 1155 3351 +61 7 3218 3650 (fax)

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