Updated timezone compiler from Arthur Olson.

Obtained from: ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzcode1999a.tar.gz

1 files changed, 202 insertions, 37 deletions

diff --git a/usr.sbin/zic/Theory b/usr.sbin/zic/Theory
index 2e34663..1c43133 100644
--- a/usr.sbin/zic/Theory
+++ b/usr.sbin/zic/Theory
@@ -1,40 +1,84 @@
-@(#)Theory	7.4
-
-These time and date functions are much like the System V Release 2.0 (SVR2)
-time and date functions; there are a few additions and changes to extend
-the usefulness of the SVR2 functions:
-
-*	In SVR2, time display in a process is controlled by the environment
-	variable TZ, which "must be a three-letter time zone name, followed
-	by a number representing the difference between local time and
-	Greenwich Mean Time in hours, followed by an optional three-letter
-	name for a daylight time zone;" when the optional daylight time zone is
-	present, "standard U.S.A. Daylight Savings Time conversion is applied."
-	This means that SVR2 can't deal with other (for example, Australian)
-	daylight savings time rules, or situations where more than two
+@(#)Theory	7.6
+
+
+----- Outline -----
+
+	Time and date functions
+	Names of time zone regions
+	Time zone abbreviations
+
+
+----- Time and date functions -----
+
+These time and date functions are upwards compatible with POSIX.1,
+an international standard for Unix-like systems.
+As of this writing, the current edition of POSIX.1 is:
+
+  Information technology --Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX (R))
+  -- Part 1: System Application Program Interface (API) [C Language]
+  ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996
+  ANSI/IEEE Std 1003.1, 1996 Edition
+  1996-07-12
+
+POSIX.1 has the following properties and limitations.
+
+*	In POSIX.1, time display in a process is controlled by the
+	environment variable TZ.  Unfortunately, the POSIX.1 TZ string takes
+	a form that is hard to describe and is error-prone in practice.
+	Also, POSIX.1 TZ strings can't deal with other (for example, Israeli)
+	daylight saving time rules, or situations where more than two
 	time zone abbreviations are used in an area.
 
-*	In SVR2, time conversion information is compiled into each program
-	that does time conversion.  This means that when time conversion
+	The POSIX.1 TZ string takes the following form:
+
+		stdoffset[dst[offset],date[/time],date[/time]]
+
+	where:
+	
+	std and dst
+		are 3 or more characters specifying the standard
+		and daylight saving time (DST) zone names.
+	offset
+		is of the form `[-]hh:[mm[:ss]]' and specifies the
+		offset west of UTC.  The default DST offset is one hour
+		ahead of standard time.
+	date[/time],date[/time]
+		specifies the beginning and end of DST.  If this is absent,
+		the system supplies its own rules for DST, and these can
+		differ from year to year; typically US DST rules are used.
+	time
+		takes the form `hh:[mm[:ss]]' and defaults to 02:00.
+	date
+		takes one of the following forms:
+		Jn (1<=n<=365)
+			origin-1 day number not counting February 29
+		n (0<=n<=365)
+			origin-0 day number counting February 29 if present
+		Mm.n.d (0[Sunday]<=d<=6[Saturday], 1<=n<=5, 1<=m<=12)
+			for the dth day of week n of month m of the year,
+			where week 1 is the first week in which day d appears,
+			and `5' stands for the last week in which day d appears
+			(which may be either the 4th or 5th week).
+
+*	In POSIX.1, when a TZ value like "EST5EDT" is parsed,
+	typically the current US DST rules are used,
+	but this means that the US DST rules are compiled into each program
+	that does time conversion.  This means that when US time conversion
 	rules change (as in the United States in 1987), all programs that
 	do time conversion must be recompiled to ensure proper results.
 
-*	In SVR2, time conversion fails for near-minimum or near-maximum
-	time_t values when doing conversions for places that don't use GMT.
-
-*	In SVR2, there's no tamper-proof way for a process to learn the
+*	In POSIX.1, there's no tamper-proof way for a process to learn the
 	system's best idea of local wall clock.  (This is important for
 	applications that an administrator wants used only at certain times--
 	without regard to whether the user has fiddled the "TZ" environment
-	variable.  While an administrator can "do everything in GMT" to get
+	variable.  While an administrator can "do everything in UTC" to get
 	around the problem, doing so is inconvenient and precludes handling
-	daylight savings time shifts--as might be required to limit phone
+	daylight saving time shifts--as might be required to limit phone
 	calls to off-peak hours.)
 
-*	These functions can account for leap seconds, thanks to Bradley White
-	(bww@k.cs.cmu.edu).
+*	POSIX.1 requires that systems ignore leap seconds.
 
-These are the changes that have been made to the SVR2 functions:
+These are the extensions that have been made to the POSIX.1 functions:
 
 *	The "TZ" environment variable is used in generating the name of a file
 	from which time zone information is read (or is interpreted a la
@@ -62,13 +106,12 @@ These are the changes that have been made to the SVR2 functions:
 *	To handle places where more than two time zone abbreviations are used,
 	the functions "localtime" and "gmtime" set tzname[tmp->tm_isdst]
 	(where "tmp" is the value the function returns) to the time zone
-	abbreviation to be used.  This differs from SVR2, where the elements
+	abbreviation to be used.  This differs from POSIX.1, where the elements
 	of tzname are only changed as a result of calls to tzset.
 
 *	Since the "TZ" environment variable can now be used to control time
 	conversion, the "daylight" and "timezone" variables are no longer
-	needed or supported.  (You can use a compile-time option to cause
-	these variables to be defined and to be set by "tzset"; however, their
+	needed.  (These variables are defined and set by "tzset"; however, their
 	values will not be used by "localtime.")
 
 *	The "localtime" function has been set up to deliver correct results
@@ -86,9 +129,21 @@ These are the changes that have been made to the SVR2 functions:
 	environment variable; portable applications should not, however, rely
 	on this behavior since it's not the way SVR2 systems behave.)
 
-Points of interest to folks with Version 7 or BSD systems:
+*	These functions can account for leap seconds, thanks to Bradley White
+	(bww@k.cs.cmu.edu).
+
+Points of interest to folks with other systems:
+
+*	This package is already part of many POSIX-compliant hosts,
+	including BSD, HP, Linux, Network Appliance, SCO, SGI, and Sun.
+	On such hosts, the primary use of this package
+	is to update obsolete time zone rule tables.
+	To do this, you may need to compile the time zone compiler
+	`zic' supplied with this package instead of using the system `zic',
+	since the format of zic's input changed slightly in late 1994,
+	and many vendors still do not support the new input format.
 
-*	The BSD "timezone" function is not present in this package;
+*	The Unix Version 7 "timezone" function is not present in this package;
 	it's impossible to reliably map timezone's arguments (a "minutes west
 	of GMT" value and a "daylight saving time in effect" flag) to a
 	time zone abbreviation, and we refuse to guess.
@@ -97,12 +152,13 @@ Points of interest to folks with Version 7 or BSD systems:
 	zone abbreviation to use.  Alternatively, use
 	localtime(&clock)->tm_zone if this has been enabled.
 
-*	The BSD gettimeofday function is not used in this package;
-	this lets users control the time zone used in doing time conversions.
-	Users who don't try to control things (that is, users who do not set
-	the environment variable TZ) get the time conversion specified in the
-	file "/etc/zoneinfo/localtime"; see the time zone compiler writeup for
-	information on how to initialize this file.
+*	The 4.2BSD gettimeofday function is not used in this package.
+	This formerly let users obtain the current UTC offset and DST flag,
+	but this functionality was removed in later versions of BSD.
+
+*	In SVR2, time conversion fails for near-minimum or near-maximum
+	time_t values when doing conversions for places that don't use UTC.
+	This package takes care to do these conversions correctly.
 
 The functions that are conditionally compiled if STD_INSPIRED is defined
 should, at this point, be looked on primarily as food for thought.  They are
@@ -115,6 +171,115 @@ Hewlett Packard, offer a wider selection of functions that provide capabilities
 beyond those provided here.  The absence of such functions from this package
 is not meant to discourage the development, standardization, or use of such
 functions.  Rather, their absence reflects the decision to make this package
-close to SVR2 (with the exceptions outlined above) to ensure its broad
+contain valid extensions to POSIX.1, to ensure its broad
 acceptability.  If more powerful time conversion functions can be standardized,
 so much the better.
+
+
+----- Names of time zone rule files -----
+
+The names of this package's installed time zone rule files are chosen to
+help minimize possible future incompatibilities due to political events.
+Ordinarily, names of countries are not used, to avoid incompatibilities
+when countries change their name (e.g. Zaire->Congo) or
+when locations change countries (e.g. Hong Kong from UK colony to China).
+
+Names normally have the form AREA/LOCATION, where AREA is the name
+of a continent or ocean, and LOCATION is the name of a specific
+location within that region.  North and South America share the same
+area, `America'.  Typical names are `Africa/Cairo', `America/New_York',
+and `Pacific/Honolulu'.
+
+Here are the general rules used for choosing location names,
+in decreasing order of importance:
+
+	Use only valid Posix file names.  Use only Ascii letters, digits, `.',
+		`-' and `_'.  Do not exceed 14 characters or start with `-'.
+		E.g. prefer `Brunei' to `Bandar_Seri_Begawan'.
+	Include at least one location per time zone rule set per country.
+		One such location is enough.
+	If all the clocks in a country's region have agreed since 1970,
+		don't bother to include more than one location
+		even if subregions' clocks disagreed before 1970.
+		Otherwise these tables would become annoyingly large.
+	If a name is ambiguous, use a less ambiguous alternative;
+		e.g. many cities are named San Jose and Georgetown, so
+		prefer `Costa_Rica' to `San_Jose' and `Guyana' to `Georgetown'.
+	Keep locations compact.  Use cities or small islands, not countries
+		or regions, so that any future time zone changes do not split
+		locations into different time zones.  E.g. prefer `Paris'
+		to `France', since France has had multiple time zones.
+	Use traditional English spelling, e.g. prefer `Rome' to `Roma', and
+		prefer `Athens' to the true name (which uses Greek letters).
+		The Posix file name restrictions encourage this rule.
+	Use the most populous among locations in a country's time zone,
+		e.g. prefer `Shanghai' to `Beijing'.  Among locations with
+		similar populations, pick the best-known location,
+		e.g. prefer `Rome' to `Milan'.
+	Use the singular form, e.g. prefer `Canary' to `Canaries'.
+	Omit common suffixes like `_Islands' and `_City', unless that
+		would lead to ambiguity.  E.g. prefer `Cayman' to
+		`Cayman_Islands' and `Guatemala' to `Guatemala_City',
+		but prefer `Mexico_City' to `Mexico' because the country
+		of Mexico has several time zones.
+	Use `_' to represent a space.
+	Omit `.' from abbreviations in names, e.g. prefer `St_Helena'
+		to `St._Helena'.
+
+The file `zone.tab' lists the geographical locations used to name
+time zone rule files.
+
+Older versions of this package used a different naming scheme,
+and these older names are still supported.
+See the file `backwards' for most of these older names
+(e.g. `US/Eastern' instead of `America/New_York').
+The other old-fashioned names still supported are
+`WET', `CET', `MET', `EET' (see the file `europe'),
+and `Factory' (see the file `factory').
+
+
+----- Time zone abbreviations -----
+
+When this package is installed, it generates time zone abbreviations
+like `EST' to be compatible with human tradition and POSIX.1.
+Here are the general rules used for choosing time zone abbreviations,
+in decreasing order of importance:
+
+	Use abbreviations that consist of 3 or more upper-case Ascii letters,
+		except use "___" for locations while uninhabited.
+		Posix.1 requires at least 3 characters, and the restriction to
+		upper-case Ascii letters follows most traditions.
+		Previous editions of this database also used characters like
+		' ' and '?', but these characters have a special meaning to
+		the shell and cause commands like
+			set `date`
+		to have unexpected effects.  In theory, the character set could
+		be !%./@A-Z^_a-z{}, but these tables use only upper-case
+		Ascii letters (and "___").
+	Use abbreviations that are in common use among English-speakers,
+		e.g. `EST' for Eastern Standard Time in North America.
+		We assume that applications translate them to other languages
+		as part of the normal localization process; for example,
+		a French application might translate `EST' to `HNE'.
+	For zones whose times are taken from a city's longitude, use the
+		traditional xMT notation, e.g. `PMT' for Paris Mean Time.
+		The only name like this in current use is `GMT'.
+	If there is no common English abbreviation, abbreviate the English
+		translation of the usual phrase used by native speakers.
+		If this is not available or is a phrase mentioning the country
+		(e.g. ``Cape Verde Time''), then:
+
+		When a country has a single or principal time zone region,
+			append `T' to the country's ISO	code, e.g. `CVT' for
+			Cape Verde Time.  For summer time append `ST';
+			for double summer time append `DST'; etc.
+		When a country has multiple time zones, take the first three
+			letters of an English place name identifying each zone
+			and then append `T', `ST', etc. as before;
+			e.g. `VLAST' for VLAdivostok Summer Time.
+
+Application writers should note that these abbreviations are ambiguous
+in practice: e.g. `EST' has a different meaning in Australia than
+it does in the United States.  In new applications, it's often better
+to use numeric UTC offsets like `-0500' instead of time zone
+abbreviations like `EST'; this avoids the ambiguity.