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DateTime-Lite-v0.6.3

Changes for version v0.6.3 - 2026-04-20

  • Improvement
    • In resolve_abbreviation(), reworked the default sort order for IANA (non-extended) results returned by DateTime::Lite::TimeZone->resolve_abbreviation(). The previous order (ORDER BY MAX(tr.trans_time) DESC) produced counter-intuitive top results such as CEST -> Africa/Tripoli first.
    • The new ordering is a four-level key: 1. is_active DESC (zones whose POSIX footer still references the abbreviation come first) 2. first_trans_time ASC (earliest adopter of the abbreviation wins) 3. last_trans_time DESC (tie-break by persistence) 4. zone_name ASC (deterministic final tie-breaker) For CEST, this puts Europe/Berlin first. For PST, America/Los_Angeles. For JST, Asia/Tokyo. For WET, Atlantic/Faroe. The ordering now matches user intuition as closely as the data allows.
    • Added two new fields to IANA results:
      • 'is_active': 1 if the zone's POSIX footer_tz_string still references the abbreviation; 0 otherwise. This is computed post-query via regex.
      • 'first_trans_time': Unix epoch of the earliest transition in this zone using the abbreviation (complements the existing last_trans_time).
    • Extended alias results (when extended is set to true, falls back to extended_aliases table) keep their previous shape: 'is_primary' instead of 'is_active', no 'first_trans_time'. The two branches intentionally expose different ordering signals because their sources of authority differ (curated editorial for extended, transition data for IANA).
  • Documentation
    • Rewrote the POD for resolve_abbreviation() for is_primary and added a new section "USING Locale::Unicode::Data FOR CANONICAL DESIGNATION" that explains why no single zone is marked as "primary" among IANA candidates of an abbreviation, and demonstrates how to delegate canonical designation to Locale::Unicode::Data (which exposes CLDR's 'is_golden', 'is_primary', 'is_preferred' flags via its metazones mapping).
    • Updated the POD examples for resolve_abbreviation() to show the new result shape ('is_active', 'first_trans_time') and documented the four-level sort order in prose.
  • Tests
    • Updated t/17.resolve_abbreviation_period.t to assert the new sort order, and added two subtests checking that IANA results carry 'is_active', and that extended results carry 'is_primary' (but not 'is_active').
    • Added new test suite t/18.resolve_abbreviation_ordering.t
  • Performance
    • Measured the cost of the new sort: roughly +35 microseconds per call on the full 178-abbreviation test set (around +17% over the v0.6.2 baseline). Memory overhead is two additional hash keys per result row (approximately 50 bytes per row).

Documentation

CONTRIBUTING.md
README.md
benchmark.pl
Compare DateTime and DateTime::Lite performance
build_tz_database.pl
Build the DateTime::Lite::TimeZone SQLite database
leap_seconds_header.pl
Generate leap_seconds.h for DateTime::Lite XS

Modules

DateTime::Lite
Lightweight, low-dependency drop-in replacement for DateTime
DateTime::Lite::Duration
Duration objects for use with DateTime::Lite
DateTime::Lite::Exception
Exception object for DateTime::Lite
DateTime::Lite::Infinite
Infinite past and future DateTime::Lite objects
DateTime::Lite::PP
Pure-Perl fallback for the DateTime::Lite XS layer
DateTime::Lite::TimeZone
Lightweight timezone support for DateTime::Lite

Provides

DateTime::Lite::Infinite::Future
in lib/DateTime/Lite/Infinite.pm
DateTime::Lite::Infinite::Past
in lib/DateTime/Lite/Infinite.pm
DateTime::Lite::_FakeLocale
in lib/DateTime/Lite/Infinite.pm
DateTime::Lite::_Thawed
in lib/DateTime/Lite.pm

Other files