Time Zone Data Reorganization

Existing Data by Type

a) alias mapping

supplementalData.xml

<zoneFormatting>

…

<zoneItem type=”Africa/Asmera” territory=”ER” aliases=”Africa/Asmara”/>

…

</zoneFormatting>

b) metazone -> golden zone

supplementalData.xml

<mapTimezones type=”metazone”>

…

<mapZone other=”Africa_Central” territory=”001” type=”Africa/Maputo”/>

<mapZone other=”Africa_Central” territory=”BI” type=”Africa/Bujumbura”/>

<mapZone other=”Africa_Central” territory=”BW” type=”Africa/Gaborone”/>

<mapZone other=”Africa_Central” territory=”CD” type=”Africa/Lubumbashi”/>

<mapZone other=”Africa_Central” territory=”MW” type=”Africa/Blantyre”/>

<mapZone other=”Africa_Central” territory=”RW” type=”Africa/Kigali”/>

<mapZone other=”Africa_Central” territory=”ZM” type=”Africa/Lusaka”/>

<mapZone other=”Africa_Central” territory=”ZW” type=”Africa/Harare”/>

…

</mapTimezones>

c) historic metazone mapping

metazoneInfo.xml

<metazoneInfo>

…

<timezone type=”Asia/Yerevan”>

<usesMetazone to=”1991-09-22 20:00” mzone=”Yerevan”/>

<usesMetazone from=”1991-09-22 20:00” mzone=”Armenia”/>

</timezone>

…

</metazoneInfo>

d) zone -> territory

supplementalData.xml

<zoneFormatting>

…

<zoneItem type=”Africa/Asmera” territory=”ER” aliases=”Africa/Asmara”/>

…

</zoneFormatting>

e) territories where multiple time zones are available

supplementalData.xml

<zoneFormatting multizone=”001 AQ AR AU BR CA CD CL CN EC ES FM GL ID KI KZ MH MN MX MY NZ PF PT RU UA UM US UZ” tzidVersion=”2009f”>

f) Mapping between Olson ID and Unicode time zone short ID (bcp47 ids)

(1) bcp47/timezone.xml

Short ID -> Olson ID

<type name=”adalv” alias=”Europe/Andorra”/>

(2) supplementalData.xml

Olson ID -> Short ID

<bcp47KeywordMappings>

…

<mapTypes type=”timezone”>

…

<typeMap type=”Europe/Andorra” bcp47=”adalv”/>

…

</mapTypes>

…

</bcp47KeywordMappings>

g) Windows tzid mapping

supplementalData.xml

<mapTimezones type=”windows”>

<mapZone other=”AUS Central Standard Time” type=”Australia/Darwin”/> <!– S (GMT+09:30) Darwin –>

…

</mapTimezones>

Hige Level Proposal

• bcp47/timezone.xml must be there, because all keyword keys/types must reside in bcp47/*.xml. Therefore, f) (2) <bcpKeywordMappings> should be deprecated (this is an invert mapping table)
• The set of canonical Unicode time zone IDs is defined by bcp47/timezone.xml. Because we do not want to maintain the set in multiple places, long ID aliases could be embedded in bcp47/timezone.xml.
• Metazone tables (b and c) should be in a single file
• Territory mapping is almost equivalent to zone.tab in tzdata (minor exception - zone.tab does not include deprecated zones). I think it is not worth maintaining the data in CLDR. Therefore, d) and e) should be deprecated / no corresponding data in 1.8
• Windows tz mapping is independently maintained - it should be moved into a new file. Side note: A single Windows tz could be mapped to multiple zones in future.

New Data Organization

1. bcp47/timezone.xml

Add long aliases - for example

<type name=”erasm” alias=”Africa/Asmera Africa/Asmara”/>

1. metazoneInfo.xml

Add b) into this file

1. wintz.xml (new)

Store only g).