On a practical note, there is no way I'd be willing to trade binary compatibility for any of the benefits listed, at least until we're approaching 2038. Old binaries never die until there's a compelling reason, as in the Y2K scenario. I suggest that the compiler needs to generate the current 32-bit output format for the foreseeable future. It might also produce an enhanced version for new applications, but that has to be in addition to, not instead of, the old format. I'm OK with the idea of parallel zoneinfo & newzoneinfo directories. I suggest that the new format should use an XML-based structure, not binary. That should make them portable between machines with different endians and time_t sizes. Yes, it's more expensive to read, but that's the way the whole industry is going. Stuart Taylor Cisco Systems
-----Original Message----- From: Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [mailto:olsona@dc37a.nci.nih.gov] Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 2:49 PM To: Tz (tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov) Subject: Time zone: the next generation
Time zone package: the next generation
Over the last year we've done as much as possible, within the existing time zone package framework, to cope with systems with 64-bit time_t values. But the zone information compiler (zic) still produces binary files with 32-bit transition time values. Something's gotta give.
As long as we're making changes, it's best to do as much as possible (to avoid the need for further change down the road).
I've listed problems, approaches, and questions below. Much of this material is related to general matters of time rather than specific matters of time zones; my apologies.
PROBLEMS
* Future transition times/past transition times The binary files produced by zic record transition times as 32-bit values; times after the 2038 (or before 1901) cannot be represented. (The future limit can be extended to 2106 by treating the values as unsigned, but if that's done times before 1970 cannot be represented.) * Transitions in Israel Israel now goes back to standard time in the fall on the Saturday before Yom Kippur; there's no convenient way to represent this in the input to zic. * Julian-Gregorian transition Signed 32-bit time_t values can only represent years going back to 1901; this means that for most areas of the world the Gregorian calendar is in effect for all times representable by such a time_t. Signed 64-bit time_t values have a far greater range; the range always includes all instants when areas switched from Julian to Gregorian. There's no provision for handling the switch in the time zone package. (The transition happens at different times in different places; in addition to handling the jump over a number of days, there's also the matter of figuring out whether a year ending in 00 is a leap year in a particular place.) * Year zero Some year numbering schemes skip over the year zero; others do not. There's no provision for specifying whether or not to skip in the time zone package. * Early years of Julian calendar Leap years were inserted every three (rather than four) years early in the life of the Julian calendar; some leap years were skipped later to make up for this. Month lengths (and names) were also in flux for a while. Documentation of the glitches is shaky; there's no way to reflect what documentation we do have. * Pre-Julian calendars The time zone package cannot handle information about the Roman Republic calendar or any of its predecessors. * Non-Julian-Gregorian calendars The time zone package cannot handle information about non-Julian-Gregorian time schemes (Mayan, Martian, and so on). * Big Bang/Big Crunch Signed 64-bit time_t values have enough range to go back to theorized time of the Big Bang origin of the universe and thus back to the start of time itself. Some folks might want to fold all instants "before" the Big Bang in to that instant. At the other end, advocates of the Big Crunch theory might want to treat time_t values greater than the predicted Crunch instant as if they were the Crunch instant. There's no way to do such pegging in the time zone package. * Creation/Apocalypse Some folks might want to peg past times at a predicted time of Creation and peg future times at a predicted Apocalypse.
APPROACHES
* Do nothing Since things don't get sticky until at least 2037, it's possible to wait (at least for a while) before taking action. * Tweak the binary file format At the least this would involve widening stored transition times beyond 32 bits. It might also be necessary to widen offsets as a way of coping with Julian/Gregorian shifts and year zero skips. * Abandon binary files We're now operating on the "terminfo" model in which human-readable descriptions are converted to binary form (with some precomputation done) for use by programs. We could shift to the earlier "termcap" model, simply copying files such as "asia" and "northamerica" to a public directory and interpreting them at run time. This eliminates the need to change binary file formats (since such files disappear); there might still be a need to change the source file format if we wanted to do things such as handle Julian/Gregorian transitions. Responsibly taking this approach might involve learning why the termcap-to-terminfo transition occurred, and whether the reasons are still applicable in today's computing environment. * Preprocess We could change "zic" so that for each zone it outputs a file with only those Rule and Zone lines required for the zone; there could be some simplification of the output (such as expressing all times in UTC) to ease interpretation. Again there would be run-time interpretation, but the job would be scaled down (by pre-identification of relevant data) and simplified. * Change zic's output to another format We could take the vzic route of reading the existing source files and producing VZONEINFO format output. We might want to extend the VZONEINFO format (for example, to handle leap seconds). We might want to produce output in some other existing format, or in a newly designed format.
QUESTIONS
* Do we handle Julian/Gregorian transitions? * Do we allow control of skipping the year zero? * Do we handle early-Julian leap year variations? * Do we handle pegging of far-past and far-future times? * For each new of the above: * What default assumption should be used in zic and in run-time software? * Can the assumption be overridden in a time zone source file? If so, how? * Can the assumption be overridden using an environment variable? If so, how? * Can the assumption be overridden with function calls? If so, how? * Do we simplify handling of events tied to non-Gregorian-calendar-related events (such as Yom Kippur)? * Do we handle pre-Julian or non-Julian-Gregorian time schemes? * When Sherman types... %horton TZ=Europe/Rome wayback March 15 -44 ...will he and Mr. Peabody witness an assassination?
So...before discussing any of the above in detail...are the problems, approaches, and questions above correct and complete? If not, what should be changed?
--ado