Re: tzdata format

Paul Eggert writes:

Part of the motivation for the seemingly unnecessary complexity of the rule lines is a desire to match the natural-language statutes as closely as possible.

Okay; but why not include the previous ``save'' value, so that the times have unambiguous meanings?

Hawaii had DST for only three weeks in 1933; is that close enough?

What I'm asking for is a clear definition of the order of rule lines. Is it enough to sort them by month, and by day within month when the day is constant? Why are the rule lines allowed to be in any order? Aren't they always in the same order that they occur in each applicable year? ---Dan