[Zope3-dev] tzinfo

[Guido van Rossum]

[Patrick]
> > > tzname() returns a string that names the intended timezone. What
> > > about the fact that a dtx may have multiple names for its notion of
> > > an individual timezone? Should this return a tuple, instead of a
> > > string? Should it be tznames instead of tzname?

> [Guido van Rossum]
> > What do you mean by multiple names?  Do you simply mean different ways
> > to spell the same name, e.g. "EST, "Eastern Standard Time"?  Or do you
> > mean that it's customary to use a different name when DST is in effect
> > than when it's not?  For the former, I prefer to return a single name
> > -- if you want a different name, supply a different tzinfo object.
> > For the latter, my intention was that it should return the name in
> > effect at the given date/time.  E.g. a tzinfo object representing the
> > US/Eastern timezone with DST rules could return "EST" for dates on
> > which DST is off, and "EDT" for dates on which DST is off.  (Or it
> > could return US/Eastern year round -- that's an implementation choice
> > for the tzinfo object.)
> 
> I was thinking of all of the above. This is likely the least important
> method of a tzinfo object, but I was just being thorough and going for
> maximum flexibility. I don't have a strong objection if you feel that
> returning a single string is sufficient.

I propose to let it return a single string, on the basis of YAGNI.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)