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CONTRIBUTING revision 1.3 
      1 Contributing to the tz code and data
      2 
      3 The time zone database is by no means authoritative: governments
      4 change timekeeping rules erratically and sometimes with little
      5 warning, the data entries do not cover all of civil time before
      6 1970, and undoubtedly errors remain in the code and data.  Feel
      7 free to fill gaps or fix mistakes, and please email improvements
      8 to tz (a] iana.org for use in the future.  In your email, please give
      9 reliable sources that reviewers can check.
     10 
     11 -----
     12 
     13 Developers can contribute technical changes to the source code and
     14 data as follows.
     15 
     16 To email small changes, please run a POSIX shell command like
     17 'diff -u old/europe new/europe >myfix.patch', and attach
     18 myfix.patch to the email.
     19 
     20 For more-elaborate changes, please read the theory.html file and browse
     21 the mailing list archives <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/> for
     22 examples of patches that tend to work well.  Additions to
     23 data should contain commentary citing reliable sources as
     24 justification.  Citations should use https: URLs if available.
     25 
     26 Please submit changes against either the latest release in
     27 <https://www.iana.org/time-zones> or the master branch of the development
     28 repository.  If you use Git the following workflow may be helpful:
     29 
     30   * Copy the development repository.
     31 
     32       git clone https://github.com/eggert/tz.git
     33       cd tz
     34 
     35   * Get current with the master branch.
     36 
     37       git checkout master
     38       git pull
     39 
     40   * Switch to a new branch for the changes.  Choose a different
     41     branch name for each change set.
     42 
     43       git checkout -b mybranch
     44 
     45   * Edit source files.  Include commentary that justifies the
     46     changes by citing reliable sources.
     47 
     48   * Debug the changes, e.g.:
     49 
     50       make check
     51       make install
     52       ./zdump -v America/Los_Angeles
     53 
     54   * For each separable change, commit it in the new branch, e.g.:
     55 
     56       git add northamerica
     57       git commit
     58 
     59     See recent 'git log' output for the commit-message style.
     60 
     61   * Create patch files 0001-*, 0002-*, ...
     62 
     63       git format-patch master
     64 
     65   * After reviewing the patch files, send the patches to tz (a] iana.org
     66     for others to review.
     67 
     68       git send-email master
     69 
     70   * Start anew by getting current with the master branch again
     71     (the second step above).
     72 
     73 Please do not create issues or pull requests on GitHub, as the
     74 proper procedure for proposing and distributing patches is via
     75 email as illustrated above.
     76