Release 2024a - 2024-02-01 09:28:56 -0800
Changes to code
The FROM and TO columns of Rule lines can no longer be "minimum"
or an abbreviation of "minimum", because TZif files do not support
DST rules that extend into the indefinite past - although these
rules were supported when TZif files had only 32-bit data, this
stopped working when 64-bit TZif files were introduced in 1995.
This should not be a problem for realistic data, since DST was
first used in the 20th century. As a transition aid, FROM columns
like "minimum" are now diagnosed and then treated as if they were
the year 1900; this should suffice for TZif files on old systems
with only 32-bit time_t, and it is more compatible with bugs in
2023c-and-earlier localtime.c. (Problem reported by Yoshito
Umaoka.)
localtime and related functions no longer mishandle some
timestamps that occur about 400 years after a switch to a time
zone with a DST schedule. In 2023d data this problem was visible
for some timestamps in November 2422, November 2822, etc. in
America/Ciudad_Juarez. (Problem reported by Gilmore Davidson.)
strftime %s now uses tm_gmtoff if available. (Problem and draft
patch reported by Dag-Erling Smørgrav.)
Changes to build procedure
The leap-seconds.list file is now copied from the IERS instead of
from its downstream counterpart at NIST, as the IERS version is
now in the public domain too and tends to be more up-to-date.
(Thanks to Martin Burnicki for liaisoning with the IERS.)
Changes to documentation
The strftime man page documents which struct tm members affect
which conversion specs, and that tzset is called. (Problems
reported by Robert Elz and Steve Summit.)