CONTRIBUTING revision 325159 
1Contributing to the tz code and data
2
3The time zone database is by no means authoritative: governments
4change timekeeping rules erratically and sometimes with little
5warning, the data entries do not cover all of civil time before
61970, and undoubtedly errors remain in the code and data.  Feel
7free to fill gaps or fix mistakes, and please email improvements
8to tz@iana.org for use in the future.  In your email, please give
9reliable sources that reviewers can check.
10
11-----
12
13Developers can contribute technical changes to the source code and
14data as follows.
15
16To email small changes, please run a POSIX shell command like
17'diff -u old/europe new/europe >myfix.patch', and attach
18myfix.patch to the email.
19
20For more-elaborate changes, please read the theory.html file and browse
21the mailing list archives <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/> for
22examples of patches that tend to work well.  Additions to
23data should contain commentary citing reliable sources as
24justification.  Citations should use https: URLs if available.
25
26Please submit changes against either the latest release in
27<https://www.iana.org/time-zones> or the master branch of the development
28repository.  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@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
73Please do not create issues or pull requests on GitHub, as the
74proper procedure for proposing and distributing patches is via
75email as illustrated above.
76
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78
79This file is in the public domain.
80