> >> I thought the issue under question was to find out what
> the time zone
> >> was.
>
> > Nope, we already had that. The issue is that the names are not the
> > same as the one used in zic/unix, so there is nothing to match on.
>
> Right. The problem we are actually faced with is to identify
> which of the zic timezones is the best match for the system's
> timezone setting.
> One of the issues is that it's not clear what "best" means...
>
> At the moment I like Oliver Jowett's idea of defining "best"
> as "the one that matches furthest back".
Sounds reasonable to me. As long as a clear warning is put in the log
whenever something is picked that is not a perfect match, so the admin
is directed at the potential problem and can fix it (by setting the GUC
timezone variable).
"Most apps" are probably going to deal with datetimes starting a couple
of years back and going into the future. In these cases it doesn't even
matter. Certainly not all, though.
//Magnus