Re: [Tzdist-bis] Last Call: <draft-murchison-tzdist-tzif-13.txt> (The Time Zone Information Format (TZif)) to Proposed Standard

[tom petch <[e-mail]>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Parenti" <[e-mail]>
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2018 3:21 PM

> It's a fairly standard interval or range notation in mathematics that
the
> types of the brackets used are important.  I would imagine this
appears in
> plenty of other RFCs and the like.
>
> The square left bracket next to 0 means "starting at and including 0",
> while the round right bracket next to 'typecnt' means "up to but NOT
> including 'typecnt'."  So there are a total of 'typecnt' elements,
indexed
> from 0 to 'typecnt'-1, inclusive.  Likewise for (desig)idx and
charcnt.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(mathematics)
>
> This convention of including the lower bound and excluding the upper
has an
> established history in computing as well:
> https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD831.html

Ah yes, my mathematics has indeed let me down. Thank you for putting me
right.

Tom Petch

> --
> Tim Parenti
>
>
> On Thu, 13 Sep 2018 at 07:55, tom petch <[e-mail]>
wrote:
>
> > My arithmetic may be letting me down, but in s.3.2, when there are
> > 'typecnt' entries in a list of transition types, then I would expect
the
> > index to be
> > [0, 'typecnt'-1)
> > or
> > [1, 'typecnt')
> > but not
> > [0, 'typecnt')
> > as the I-D says, unless zero has a special meaning but then it is
not
> > really an index.
> >
> > Ditto for (desig)idx  and charcnt except that this list is NUL
> > terminated, but then I would not expect it to be valid to index the
NUL.
> >
> > I infer, and would rather be told explicitly, that
> > "The total number of octets is specified by the 'charcnt' field ..
> > excludes the NUL that terminates the list.
> >
> > In s.1,
> > "the source the time zone data  metadata, identifiers, ..."
> > would appear to be light of an 'of'.
> >
> > Tom Petch
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "The IESG" <[e-mail]>
> > Cc: <[e-mail]>; <[e-mail]>;
> > <[e-mail]>; <[e-mail]>
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2018 4:55 PM
> >
> > > The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to
> > consider the
> > > following document: - 'The Time Zone Information Format (TZif)'
> > >   <draft-murchison-tzdist-tzif-13.txt> as Proposed Standard
> > >