On 6 June 2016 at 07:27, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:

Jon Skeet wrote:

hard (both technically and in terms
of any IANA process required) would it be to start publishing a zip file of
the tzvalidate output alongside the code and data files, and include just a
hash within the main data zip file (e.g. as a new file such as
tzvalidate-sha256.txt)? While I'm happy to keep doing this separately, it
would obviously be better if it were integrated into the main process.

Something like this sounds like a good idea. I'd be inclined to use tar.gz format (as this format is already used by the distribution)

Sorry, yes, that was sloppy on my part - I meant "a general compressed container".

as a container for zgrep -i format (whatever that turns out to be) for validation.

Well, I was proposing a transformation from the zdump -i format into one specifically for validation - in other words, after the "bad data" (typos) use cases have been weeded out, and we're into the "bad code" (in libraries) territory, at which point I still think the format I've proposed is more readable both for humans and machines.

If we distribute that, and while we're at it distribute the zic binary-file output (which others have requested), then we can use the same mechanism we're already using for checksumming distributions.

Sure. (Can't say I've looked at that part of the existing scheme, but I'm sure it makes sense.)

Jon