On Fri, May 3, 2013, at 9:32, Robert Elz wrote:
Rather we should be encouraging people to use the binary output files from zic for almost all purposes when they need something more than standard libc functions provide. And if that means documenting that format, more than is already done, then let's do it. It is already difficult to the point of almost impossibility to make much in the way of changes to that file format,
Actually, it is extensible by A) adding new data to the end of the existing data and/or B) altering the 15 bytes of reserved fields available in the headers. It would be necessary to determine if there are any existing libc implementations that would choke on such a modification, of course. I've been sitting on an idea for a proposal to extend the format, actually, to support localized timezone names and/or keys for looking up such localized information in a database such as CLDR. The main purpose of such a change would be A) to allow for programs to support localized information without having to parse XML and B) to remove the need to immediately update and deploy a new version of CLDR if a new zone is added or changes to a different named timezone (e.g. timezones in indiana moving from eastern to central a few years ago)