(tz) Support tzdata2014g

The 2014g release of the tz code and data is available. It reflects the following changes, which were either circulated on the tz mailing list or are relatively minor technical or administrative changes:

  Changes affecting future time stamps

    Turks & Caicos is switching from US eastern time to UTC-4 year-round,
    modeled as a switch from EST/EDT to AST on 2014-11-02 at 02:00.

  Changes affecting past time stamps

    Time in Russia or the USSR before 1926 or so has been corrected by
    a few seconds in the following zones: Asia/Irkutsk,
    Asia/Krasnoyarsk, Asia/Omsk, Asia/Samarkand, Asia/Tbilisi,
    Asia/Vladivostok, Asia/Yakutsk, Europe/Riga, Europe/Samara. For
    Asia/Yekaterinburg the correction is a few minutes. (Thanks to
    Vladimir Karpinsky.)

    The Portuguese decree of 1911-05-26 took effect on 1912-01-01.
    This affects 1911 time stamps in Africa/Bissau, Africa/Luanda,
    Atlantic/Azores, and Atlantic/Madeira. Also, Lisbon's pre-1912
    GMT offset was -0:36:45 (rounded from -0:36:44.68), not -0:36:32.
    (Thanks to Stephen Colebourne for pointing to the decree.)

    Asia/Dhaka ended DST on 2009-12-31 at 24:00, not 23:59.

    A new file 'backzone' contains data which may appeal to
    connoisseurs of old time stamps, although it is out of scope for
    the tz database, is often poorly sourced, and contains some data
    that is known to be incorrect. The new file is not recommended
    for ordinary use and its entries are not installed by default.
    (Thanks to Lester Caine for the high-quality Jersey, Guernsey, and
    Isle of Man entries.)

    Some more zones have been turned into links, when they differed
    from existing zones only for older time stamps. As usual,
    these changes affect UTC offsets in pre-1970 time stamps only.
    Their old contents have been moved to the 'backzone' file.
    The affected zones are: Africa/Bangui, Africa/Brazzaville,
    Africa/Douala, Africa/Kinshasa, Africa/Libreville, Africa/Luanda,
    Africa/Malabo, Africa/Niamey, and Africa/Porto-Novo.

  Changes affecting code

    Unless NETBSD_INSPIRED is defined to 0, the tz library now
    supplies functions for creating and using objects that represent
    time zones. The new functions are tzalloc, tzfree, localtime_rz,
    mktime_z, and (if STD_INSPIRED is also defined) posix2time_z and
    time2posix_z. They are intended for performance: for example,
    localtime_rz (unlike localtime_r) is trivially thread-safe without
    locking. (Thanks to Christos Zoulas for proposing NetBSD-inspired
    functions, and to Alan Barrett and Jonathan Lennox for helping to
    debug the change.)

    zdump now builds with the tz library unless USE_LTZ is defined to 0,
    This lets zdump use tz features even if the system library lacks them.
    To build zdump with the system library, use 'make CFLAGS=-DUSE_LTZ=0
    TZDOBJS=zdump.o CHECK_TIME_T_ALTERNATIVES='.

    zdump now uses localtime_rz if available, as it's significantly faster,
    and it can help zdump better diagnose invalid time zone names.
    Define HAVE_LOCALTIME_RZ to 0 to suppress this. HAVE_LOCALTIME_RZ
    defaults to 1 if NETBSD_INSPIRED && USE_LTZ. When localtime_rz is
    not available, zdump now uses localtime_r and tzset if available,
    as this is a bit cleaner and faster than plain localtime. Compile
    with -DHAVE_LOCALTIME_R=0 and/or -DHAVE_TZSET=0 if your system
    lacks these two functions.

    If THREAD_SAFE is defined to 1, the tz library is now thread-safe.
    Although not needed for tz's own applications, which are single-threaded,
    this supports POSIX better if the tz library is used in multithreaded apps.

    Some crashes have been fixed when zdump or the tz library is given
    invalid or outlandish input.

    The tz library no longer mishandles leap seconds on platforms with
    unsigned time_t in time zones that lack ordinary transitions after 1970.

    The tz code now attempts to infer TM_GMTOFF and TM_ZONE if not
    already defined, to make it easier to configure on common platforms.
    Define NO_TM_GMTOFF and NO_TM_ZONE to suppress this.

    Unless the new macro UNINIT_TRAP is defined to 1, the tz code now
    assumes that reading uninitialized memory yields garbage values
    but does not cause other problems such as traps.

    If TM_GMTOFF is defined and UNINIT_TRAP is 0, mktime is now
    more likely to guess right for ambiguous time stamps near
    transitions where tm_isdst does not change.

    If HAVE_STRFTIME_L is defined to 1, the tz library now defines
    strftime_l for compatibility with recent versions of POSIX.
    Only the C locale is supported, though. HAVE_STRFTIME_L defaults
    to 1 on recent POSIX versions, and to 0 otherwise.

    tzselect -c now uses a hybrid distance measure that works better
    in Africa. (Thanks to Alan Barrett for noting the problem.)

    The C source code now ports to NetBSD when GCC_DEBUG_FLAGS is used,
    or when time_tz is defined.

    When HAVE_UTMPX_H is set the 'date' command now builds on systems
    whose <utmpx.h> file does not define WTMPX_FILE, and when setting
    the date it updates the wtmpx file if _PATH_WTMPX is defined.
    This affects GNU/Linux and similar systems.

    For easier maintenance later, some C code has been simplified,
    some lint has been removed, and the code has been tweaked so that
    plain 'make' is more likely to work.

    The C type 'bool' is now used for boolean values, instead of 'int'.

    The long-obsolete LOCALE_HOME code has been removed.

    The long-obsolete 'gtime' function has been removed.

  Changes affecting build procedure

    'zdump' no longer links in ialloc.o, as it's not needed.

    'make check_time_t_alternatives' no longer assumes GNU diff.

  Changes affecting distribution tarballs

    The files checktab.awk and zoneinfo2tdf.pl are now distributed in
    the tzdata tarball instead of the tzcode tarball, since they help
    maintain the data. The NEWS and Theory files are now also
    distributed in the tzdata tarball, as they're relevant for data.
    (Thanks to Alan Barrett for pointing this out.) Also, the
    leapseconds.awk file is no longer distributed in the tzcode
    tarball, since it belongs in the tzdata tarball (where 2014f
    inadvertently also distributed it).

  Changes affecting documentation and commentary

    A new file CONTRIBUTING is distributed. (Thanks to Tim Parenti for
    suggesting a CONTRIBUTING file, and to Tony Finch and Walter Harms
    for debugging it.)

    The man pages have been updated to use function prototypes,
    to document thread-safe variants like localtime_r, and to document
    the NetBSD-inspired functions tzalloc, tzfree, localtime_rz, and
    mktime_z.

    The fields in Link lines have been renamed to be more descriptive
    and more like the parameters of 'ln'. LINK-FROM has become TARGET,
    and LINK-TO has become LINK-NAME.

    tz-link.htm mentions the IETF's tzdist working group; Windows
    Runtime etc. (thanks to Matt Johnson); and HP-UX's tztab.

    Some broken URLs have been fixed in the commentary. (Thanks to
    Lester Caine.)

    Commentary about Philippines DST has been updated, and commentary
    on pre-1970 time in India has been added.

Here are links to the release files:

  ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/releases/tzcode2014g.tar.gz
  ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/releases/tzdata2014g.tar.gz

The 2014f release of the tz code and data is available. It reflects the following changes, which were either circulated on the tz mailing list or are relatively minor technical or administrative changes:

  Changes affecting future time stamps

    Russia will subtract an hour from most of its time zones on
    2014-10-26 at 02:00 local time. (Thanks to Alexander Krivenyshev.)
    There are a few exceptions: Magadan Oblast (Asia/Magadan) and
    Zabaykalsky Krai are subtracting two hours; conversely, Chukotka
    Autonomous Okrug (Asia/Anadyr), Kamchatka Krai (Asia/Kamchatka),
    Kemerovo Oblast (Asia/Novokuznetsk), and the Samara Oblast and the
    Udmurt Republic (Europe/Samara) are not changing their clocks. The
    changed zones are Europe/Kaliningrad, Europe/Moscow,
    Europe/Simferopol, Europe/Volgograd, Asia/Yekaterinburg, Asia/Omsk,
    Asia/Novosibirsk, Asia/Krasnoyarsk, Asia/Irkutsk, Asia/Yakutsk,
    Asia/Vladivostok, Asia/Khandyga, Asia/Sakhalin, and Asia/Ust-Nera;
    Asia/Magadan will have two hours subtracted; and Asia/Novokuznetsk's
    time zone abbreviation is affected, but not its UTC offset. Two
    zones are added: Asia/Chita (split from Asia/Yakutsk, and also with
    two hours subtracted) and Asia/Srednekolymsk (split from
    Asia/Magadan, but with only one hour subtracted). (Thanks to Tim
    Parenti for much of the above.)

  Changes affecting time zone abbreviations

    Australian eastern time zone abbreviations are now AEST/AEDT not
    EST, and similarly for the other Australian zones. That is, for
    eastern standard and daylight saving time the abbreviations are AEST
    and AEDT instead of the former EST for both; similarly, ACST/ACDT,
    ACWST/ACWDT, and AWST/AWDT are now used instead of the former CST,
    CWST, and WST. This change does not affect UTC offsets, only time
    zone abbreviations. (Thanks to Rich Tibbett and many others.)

    Asia/Novokuznetsk shifts from NOVT to KRAT (remaining on UTC+7)
    effective 2014-10-26 at 02:00 local time.

    The time zone abbreviation for Xinjiang Time (observed in Ürümqi)
    has been changed from URUT to XJT. (Thanks to Luther Ma.)

    Prefer MSK/MSD for Moscow time in Russia, even in other cities.
    Similarly, prefer EET/EEST for eastern European time in Russia.

    Change time zone abbreviations in (western) Samoa to use "ST" and
    "DT" suffixes, as this is more likely to match common practice.
    Prefix "W" to (western) Samoa time when its standard-time offset
    disagrees with that of American Samoa.

    America/Metlakatla now uses PST, not MeST, to abbreviate its time
    zone.

    Time zone abbreviations have been updated for Japan's two time
    zones used 1896-1937. JWST now stands for Western Standard
    Time, and JCST for Central Standard Time (formerly this was CJT).
    These abbreviations are now used for time in Korea, Taiwan,
    and Sakhalin while controlled by Japan.

  Changes affecting past time stamps

    China's five zones have been simplified to two, since the post-1970
    differences in the other three seem to have been imaginary. The
    zones Asia/Harbin, Asia/Chongqing, and Asia/Kashgar have been
    removed; backwards-compatibility links still work, albeit with
    different behaviors for time stamps before May 1980. Asia/Urumqi's
    1980 transition to UTC+8 has been removed, so that it is now at
    UTC+6 and not UTC+8. (Thanks to Luther Ma and to Alois Treindl;
    Treindl sent helpful translations of two papers by Guo Qingsheng.)

    Some zones have been turned into links, when they differed from
    existing zones only for older UTC offsets where the data were likely
    invented. These changes affect UTC offsets in pre-1970 time stamps
    only. This is similar to the change in release 2013e, except this
    time for western Africa. The affected zones are: Africa/Bamako,
    Africa/Banjul, Africa/Conakry, Africa/Dakar, Africa/Freetown,
    Africa/Lome, Africa/Nouakchott, Africa/Ouagadougou, Africa/Sao_Tome,
    and Atlantic/St_Helena. This also affects the
    backwards-compatibility link Africa/Timbuktu. (Thanks to Alan
    Barrett, Stephen Colebourne, Tim Parenti, and David Patte for
    reporting problems in earlier versions of this change.)

    Asia/Shanghai's pre-standard-time UT offset has been changed from
    8:05:57 to 8:05:43, the location of Xujiahui Observatory. Its
    transition to standard time has been changed from 1928 to 1901.

    Asia/Taipei switched to JWST on 1896-01-01, then to JST on
    1937-10-01, then to CST on 1945-09-21 at 01:00, and did not observe
    DST in 1945. In 1946 it observed DST from 05-15 through 09-30; in
    1947 from 04-15 through 10-31; and in 1979 from 07-01 through 09-30.
    (Thanks to Yu-Cheng Chuang.)

    Asia/Riyadh's transition to standard time is now 1947-03-14, not
    1950.

    Europe/Helsinki's 1942 fall-back transition was 10-04 at 01:00, not
    10-03 at 00:00. (Thanks to Konstantin Hyppönen.)

    Pacific/Pago_Pago has been changed from UTC-11:30 to UTC-11 for the
    period from 1911 to 1950.

    Pacific/Chatham has been changed to New Zealand standard time plus
    45 minutes for the period before 1957, reflecting a 1956 remark in
    the New Zealand parliament.

    Europe/Budapest has several pre-1946 corrections: in 1918 the
    transition out of DST was on 09-16, not 09-29; in 1919 it was on
    11-24, not 09-15; in 1945 it was on 11-01, not 11-03; in 1941 the
    transition to DST was 04-08 not 04-06 at 02:00; and there was no DST
    in 1920.

    Africa/Accra is now assumed to have observed DST from 1920 through
    1935.

    Time in Russia before 1927 or so has been corrected by a few seconds
    in the following zones: Europe/Moscow, Asia/Irkutsk, Asia/Tbilisi,
    Asia/Tashkent, Asia/Vladivostok, Asia/Yekaterinburg,
    Europe/Helsinki, and Europe/Riga. Also, Moscow's location has been
    changed to its Kilometer 0 point. (Thanks to Vladimir Karpinsky for
    the Moscow changes.)

  Changes affecting data format

    A new file 'zone1970.tab' supersedes 'zone.tab' in the installed
    data. The new file's extended format allows multiple country codes
    per zone. The older file is still installed but is deprecated; its
    format is not changing and it will still be distributed for a while,
    but new applications should use the new file.

    The new file format simplifies maintenance of obscure locations.
    To test this, it adds coverage for the Crozet Islands and the
    Scattered Islands. (Thanks to Tobias Conradi and Antoine Leca.)

    The file 'iso3166.tab' is planned to switch from ASCII to UTF-8.
    It is still ASCII now, but commentary about the switch has been
    added. The new file 'zone1970.tab' already uses UTF-8.

  Changes affecting code

    'localtime', 'mktime', etc. now use much less stack space if
    ALL_STATE is defined. (Thanks to Elliott Hughes for reporting the
    problem.)

    'zic' no longer mishandles input when ignoring case in locales that
    are not compatible with English, e.g., unibyte Turkish locales when
    compiled with HAVE_GETTEXT.

    Error diagnostics of 'zic' and 'yearistype' have been reworded so
    that they no longer use ASCII '-' as if it were a dash.

    'zic' now rejects output file names that contain '.' or '..'
    components. (Thanks to Tim Parenti for reporting the problem.)

    'zic -v' now warns about output file names that do not follow
    POSIX rules, or that contain a digit or '.'. (Thanks to Arthur
    David Olson for starting the ball rolling on this.)

    Some lint has been removed when using GCC_DEBUG_FLAGS with GCC
    4.9.0.

  Changes affecting build procedure

    'zic' no longer links in localtime.o and asctime.o, as they're not
    needed. (Thanks to John Cochran.)

  Changes affecting documentation and commentary

    The 'Theory' file documents legacy names, the longstanding
    exceptions to the POSIX-inspired file name rules.

    The 'zic' documentation clarifies the role of time types when
    interpreting dates. (Thanks to Arthur David Olson.)

    Documentation and commentary now prefer UTF-8 to US-ASCII,
    allowing the use of proper accents in foreign words and names.
    Code and data have not changed because of this. (Thanks to
    Garrett Wollman, Ian Abbott, and Guy Harris for helping to debug
    this.)

    Non-HTML documentation and commentary now use plain-text URLs
    instead of HTML insertions, and are more consistent about bracketing
    URLs when they are not already surrounded by white space. (Thanks
    to suggestions by Steffen Nurpmeso.)

    There is new commentary about Xujiahui Observatory, the five
    timezone project in China from 1918 to 1949, timekeeping in
    Japanese-occupied Shanghai, and Tibet Time in the 1950s. The
    sharp-eyed can spot the warlord Jin Shuren in the data.

    Commentary about the coverage of each Russian zone has been
    standardized. (Thanks to Tim Parenti).

    There is new commentary about contemporary timekeeping in Ethiopia.

    Obsolete comments about a 2007 proposal for DST in Kuwait has been
    removed.

    There is new commentary about time in Poland in 1919.

    Proper credit has been given to DST inventor George Vernon Hudson.

    Commentary about time in Metlakatla, AK and Resolute, NU has been
    improved, with a new source for the former.

    In zone.tab, Pacific/Easter no longer mentions Salas y Gómez, as it
    is uninhabited.

    Commentary about permanent Antarctic bases has been updated.

    Several typos have been corrected. (Thanks to Tim Parenti for
    contributing some of these fixes.)

    tz-link.htm now mentions the JavaScript libraries Moment Timezone,
    TimezoneJS.Date, Walltime-js, and Timezone. (Thanks to a heads-up
    from Matt Johnson.) Also, it mentions the Go 'latlong' package.
    (Thanks to a heads-up from Dirkjan Ochtman.)

    The files usno1988, usno1989, usno1989a, usno1995, usno1997, and
    usno1998 have been removed. These obsolescent US Naval Observatory
    entries were no longer helpful for maintenance. (Thanks to Tim
    Parenti for the suggestion.)

Here are links to the release files:

  ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/releases/tzcode2014f.tar.gz
  ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/releases/tzdata2014f.tar.gz

The files are also available via HTTP as follows:

  http://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzcode2014f.tar.gz
  http://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzdata2014f.tar.gz

Each release file has a GPG signature, which can be retrieved by appending ".asc" to the above URLs. Copies of these signatures are appended to this message.

As usual, links to the latest release files are here:

  http://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tzcode-latest.tar.gz
  http://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tzdata-latest.tar.gz

  ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/tzcode-latest.tar.gz
  ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/tzdata-latest.tar.gz