Re: [boost] [gsoc 2013] draft proposal for chrono::date

Subject: Re: [boost] [gsoc 2013] draft proposal for chrono::date
From: John Bytheway (jbytheway+boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-05-05 11:08:17

On 2013-05-05 07:48, Rob Stewart wrote:
> On May 5, 2013, at 4:36 AM, "Vicente J. Botet Escriba"
> <vicente.botet_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
>> Le 05/05/13 04:19, Rob Stewart a écrit :
>>> On May 4, 2013, at 4:15 PM, "Vicente J. Botet Escriba"
>>> <vicente.botet_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> date today();
>>> I'd expect to be able to influence the time zone.
>> Boost.DateTime provides time zone management, but as far as I know
>> it has been a nightmare to maintain it.
> 
> I wouldn't call it a nightmare, but tools are needed to convert from
> the published data to a format needed for use by a time zone class,
> if it doesn't do the parsing directly.
> 
>> If someone knows of some portable 3pp library that we could include
>> in Boost helping on time zone management I could include it, but
>> developing it is not on my priorities.
> 
> Date support is not complete without it. You could define a time_zone
> class, put the appropriate interface on it, and the implement only
> UTC and local for now. That would leave room for later support of the
> rest of the needed things, like DST transitions and historical
> alterations.

Don't forget Boost.Locale also has date/time/timezone support.

<http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_53_0/libs/locale/doc/html/dates_times_timezones.html>

The docs suggest that ICU is necessary and sufficient for correctly
handling timezones.

John Bytheway