Paul, Thanks for this, but I actually liked Tim's table better! :-) Perhaps if I can find somewhere that explains 'POSIX TZ string format', I might begin to understand your table. I'll have a look around. PS: I was (before retirement) an embedded systems designer (h/ware + f/ware), with negligible experience in DOS and Windows programming and databases. DBase IV and CA-Clipper (both in MS-DOS) are as close as I've been to database programming, and even that was adapting someone else's code, not originating it! Regards, Daniel -----Original Message----- From: Paul Eggert [mailto:eggert@cs.ucla.edu] Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2017 1:34 PM To: Tim Parenti; Daniel Ford Cc: Time Zone Mailing List Subject: Re: [tz] Beginner's help request Tim Parenti wrote:
For your idea of a text-only table of already-parsed data, you may consider the zdump utility that is packaged in the distribution.
It sounds like what's wanted is more a table like this: Africa/Abidjan GMT0 Africa/Accra GMT0 Africa/Algiers CET-1 Africa/Bissau GMT0 Africa/Cairo EET-2 Africa/Casablanca WET0WEST,M3.5.0,M10.5.0/3 Africa/Ceuta CET-1CEST,M3.5.0,M10.5.0/3 ... where the first column is the TZ name, and the second is the prediction of the future behavior of clocks in the corresponding location, in nearly-POSIX TZ string format. We don't distribute a table like that now, though I suppose we could generate one automatically from the information that is already there.