The current format is *not* easily readable by machines unless all of the tzinfo parser accompanies the data. XML would allow the data to be used without the software, making it instantly available for all the platforms not supported today (I never did get the tzinfo parser to compile under Win32). XML parsers are far more commonly available than ports of the tzinfo parser software.
From: Eric Ulevik [mailto:eau@ozemail.com.au] ... The downsides of XML are: * you need a full up-to-date parser for most benefits
You don't, actually. The tzinfo could be in the simpliest form of XML and still be extremely useful.
* right now, there are no good editors for creating XML
Not true. Win32 has about half a dozen good ones. Check out xml.com for a large list of xml-related resources, including editors, for all platforms. Of course, the initial port of the XML should be generated by a program anyway, but for edits, you're right -- you'll need a good XML editor.
* data expands a fair bit
That's true. Chris Sells http://staff.develop.com/csells
-----Original Message----- From: Eric Ulevik [mailto:eau@ozemail.com.au] Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2000 2:47 PM To: tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov Cc: Garrett Wollman Subject: Re: FW: Time Zone Issues
From: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
<<On Tue, 18 Apr 2000 21:49:45 -0700 (PDT), Paul Eggert <eggert@twinsun.com> said:
There has been talk from various quarters of XMLizing the whole thing, but it would take some work and as far as I know nobody's done it yet. And there is no inherent virtue in XML. The current format has the benefit that it is easily parsed by both machines and humans, which would be much more difficult in any XML-based scheme.
The benefits of XML are: * most computer systems will be able to directly read/write the structured data * guarantees validity of the data by the use of DTDs and Schemas * handles internationalization properly
The downsides of XML are: * you need a full up-to-date parser for most benefits * right now, there are no good editors for creating XML * data expands a fair bit
Regards,
Eric Ulevik
From: "Chris Sells" <csells@sellsbrothers.com> Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 15:06:21 -0700 XML would allow the data to be used without the software, making it instantly available for all the platforms not supported today Yes, they could read the XML data, but these platforms can read the text data now. Merely XMLizing the data won't make it much more available for time calculations, which is the goal here. A more appropriate new format would be MIME text/calendar, which specifies a VTIMEZONE calendar component. Please see: http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/calsch-charter.html http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt (section 4.6.5) Doug Royer wrote in February that he was working on a project to convert the tz database to VTIMEZONE format, and I believe he's still working on it. As I understand it he also advocated that IANA be in charge of the tz database, but I don't know what's come of that part of his proposal.
From: Eric Ulevik [mailto:eau@ozemail.com.au] * right now, there are no good editors for creating XML
Not true. Win32 has about half a dozen good ones. I don't use Win32, and I don't know of any free, portable XML editor (unless you count Emacs :-).
XML would allow the data to be used without the software, making it instantly available for all the platforms not supported today
Yes, they could read the XML data, but these platforms can read the text data now.
Assuming they've already written the appropriately robust text parser that works with the tzinfo text format. With XML, that work's already been done (in spades).
Merely XMLizing the data won't make it much more available for time calculations, which is the goal here.
No, but it will open it up for other uses. When I was doing my work, the only reason I was bothering to port the parsing software was to extract the data I wanted and not because I wanted it to do any calculations for me.
From: Eric Ulevik [mailto:eau@ozemail.com.au] * right now, there are no good editors for creating XML
Not true. Win32 has about half a dozen good ones.
I don't use Win32, and I don't know of any free, portable XML editor (unless you count Emacs :-).
Actually, I've seen some killer Emacs add-ins for XML. : ) Chris
I don't use Win32, and I don't know of any free, portable XML editor (unless you count Emacs :-).
The XED editor (http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/xed.html) is highly portable (Python and Tk), with Unix and Win32 ports. It's no Emacs, but I like it quite a bit; it enforces well-formedness, and reads a DTD, but doesn't enforce validity. -- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin
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Paul Eggert