Re: [PING^3] RFC [PATCH] BZ#1077902: New API gettimezone

[Paul Eggert <eggert at cs dot ucla dot edu>]

P J P wrote:
> > "best fit" is application-dependent.  glibc is not in a position to
> > >decide what the best fit is for a particular application.
>    Application dependent?

Yes, application dependent.  Scheduling applications, for example, are 
more interested in times in the near future, whereas date-of-birth 
applications are more interested in times in the medium-distant past. 
They have different needs for the "best fit".

> > >Plus, "best fit" is a weird thing to ask for.  Why would an
> > >application want an approximation to the TZ setting?  Why wouldn't it want the real
> > > > >thing?
>    Because application(s) can not access the tzdata files and have to depend on the value provided by 'TZ' variable. And 'TZ' variable can not accommodate entire contents of the tzdata file.

If the problem cannot easily be solved in glibc then let's be honest and 
leave things alone, and let application developers continue to solve the 
problem in the same simple and portable way that they've solved it for 
decades.  This is better than expending resources trying to come up with 
a halfhearted approximation that could well cause more problems than 
it'll fix.