At 8:37 PM -0400 8/21/03, Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) wrote:
Below are changes to zic and zdump code and documentation to cover "--version" options; there's also a zic buglet fix.
I think that a new "--version" option is a good enhancement. In addition, being able to determine the overall release number (e.g. 2003a) of the tz database would be very useful. Could the zic and zdump executables report the release number with a particular option such as "--release"? It is common for Windows and Macintosh applications to be able to specify both a version number (e.g. 7.19) and a release number (e.g. 2003a). Sometimes this release number stored in a file or variable outside of the executable file. Unfortunately, I do not have a strong unix development background and I'm not sure if there is a standard way to report a release number for a set of executables and data files.
If folks are happy I'll incorporate these in the next release (due around the last Sunday in October, after any data changes have arrived).
I'm deferring the business of putting identifiers into the output of zic to identify the source of the output. There are two areas to ponder:
1. An output file depends on the version of zic that was used to create it as well as one or more input files (certainly the file that contains the relevant "Zone" line, but also perhaps a leap second file and--potentially at least--one or more files that contain "Rule" lines. What information is sufficient?
2. Does the information need to be reflected in the header of the output file, or is it sufficient to just append the information to the end of the generated output?
--ado
My suggestion is that the output files do not use store version information in the header. I think that the output files should contain only data and not include meta data. (Previously, I had agree with someone on the list that suggested using the header for version information).