CONTRIBUTING

Contributing to the tz code and data

The time zone database is by no means authoritative: governments
change timekeeping rules erratically and sometimes with little
warning, the data entries do not cover all of civil time before
1970, and undoubtedly errors remain in the code and data.  Feel
free to fill gaps or fix mistakes, and please email improvements
to tz@iana.org for use in the future.

To email small changes, please run a POSIX shell command like
'diff -u old/europe new/europe >myfix.patch', and attach
myfix.patch to the email.

For more-elaborate changes, please read the Theory file and browse
the mailing list archives <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/> for
examples of patches that tend to work well.  Ideally, additions to
data should contain commentary citing reliable sources as
justification.

Please submit changes against either the latest release in
<ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/> or the master branch of the experimental
Git repository.  If you use Git the following workflow may be helpful:

  * Copy the experimental repository.

      git clone https://github.com/eggert/tz.git
      cd tz

  * Get current with the master branch.

      git checkout master
      git pull

  * Switch to a new branch for the changes.  Choose a different
    branch name for each change set.

      git checkout -b mybranch

  * Edit source files.  Include commentary that justifies the
    changes by citing reliable sources.

  * Debug the changes, e.g.:

      make check
      make install
      ./zdump -v America/Los_Angeles

  * For each separable change, commit it in the new branch, e.g.:

      git add northamerica
      git commit

    See recent 'git log' output for the commit-message style.

  * Create patch files 0001-*, 0002-*, ...

      git format-patch master

  * After reviewing the patch files, send the patches to tz@iana.org
    for others to review.

      git send-email master

  * Start anew by getting current with the master branch again
    (the second step above).

Please do not create issues or pull requests on GitHub, as the
proper procedure for proposing and distributing patches is via
email as illustrated above.