Like the good book (the zic manual page) says... Input lines are made up of fields. Fields are separated from one another by any number of white space characters. Leading and trailing white space on input lines is ignored. So, by definition, there can't be "extra" tabs at the beginnings of lines. While we could make the stuff in the time zone package more consistent, there are presumably files out in the wild created by other folks that wouldn't match whatever consistent pattern we settled on. The safest course for developers is to parse liberally in accordance with the manual page. --ado ________________________________ From: Colin Bowern [mailto:Colin.Bowern@officialcommunity.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 1:37 PM To: tz@lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: Inconsistent format of data files? Hi, I'm working on compiling the time zone data into an XML file for easier handling in a program. I noticed some inconsistencies in the format of the files versus the description in zic.8.txt. For example, in the latest version in Africa on line 93 there is an extra tab at the beginning. Can anyone confirm if this? I've attached screenshots of what I am seeing.