Re: BUG #9955: The time zone value for South Africa (SAST) is 01:00:00 not 09:30:00

Vik Fearing <vik.fearing@dalibo.com> writes:
> On 04/11/2014 06:54 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
>> This isn't terribly helpful.  What do you think should be changed,
>> exactly, and to what?

> It's in the subject.  The SAST utc_offset is incorrect for South Africa
> and shows instead South Australia because the abbreviation is
> ambiguous.  Not sure if there's anything to do about that.

Oh, I failed to read the wrapped-around part of the subject line :-(

We do have a plan for dealing with ambiguous abbreviations, but it
seems like it's not being followed here.  (Looking at the comments in
the africa timezone file, it seems like SAST may be a relatively recent
newcomer to the IANA TZ database; so perhaps we missed doing something
about it when it was added.)

To wit: there's already an Australia-specific timezone abbreviation file
that Aussies are supposed to install if they want their zone abbreviations
to be recognized in preference to other meanings given to the same
abbreviations elsewhere in the world.  Given that, it seems like SAST
ought to mean the South African zone by default, and you get the Aussie
version only if the "Australia" abbreviation set is installed.

BTW, the IANA database says that the SA meaning for SAST is +2:00,
not +1:00.  If the OP really wants us to use +1:00 he'd better present
some evidence that IANA is wrong.

            regards, tom lane