Here is the pertinent information about the problem from Arthur Olson - thank you for providing this answer so quickly.
Tom On Mon, 2005-03-07 at 15:56, Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) wrote: > Back at the start of 1995 the time zone source file format was updated > to allow for lines containing text such as > GMT/BST > to be used to specify a zone that uses "GMT" in normal parts of the > year and "BST" in saving parts of the year. > Of course, the time zone compiler--the program that converts the > source files to binary format--was also changed in 1995. > The situation you're seeing comes up when someone runs post-1995 > source files through a pre-1995 compiler. > There are three possible courses of action: > 1. Accept the situation. > 2. Get some old source files to run through the old time zone > compiler. > 3. Get a new compiler to use on the source files. > > You can go to ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub to find bundles of time zone > files; the "classictz*" files are the > archived stuff from before the GMT/BST change; the "tz2005*" files are > the up-to-date stuff. > > --ado > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > From: Tom Yandell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 5:39 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: DateTime mailing list > Subject: Olson database name ambiguity > > > Hi > > Apologies for cross posting this. I think that this is a problem in > the data in the Olson database, but as it is a binary format it is > difficult to verify this. I have come across this problem using the > DateTime perl module (version 0.28) whose data is generated from the > Olson database. > > The problem that I am experiencing is that the short name for > timezones for 'Europe/London' up until 1996 were either 'GMT' or 'BST' > (depending if daylight saving changes were in effect). From 1996 the > name for the timezone is the rather less precise 'GMT/BST' regardless > of whether daylight saving changes are in effect or not. I have > attached a script that demonstrates this, and its output. > > Regards, > Tom >
