CLDR proposal: Holiday rules

From: Stephen Colebourne (scolebourne@btopenworld.com)
Date: Thu Oct 20 2005 - 15:40:24 CST

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    Hi all,
    I lead the Joda-Time open-source project to provide a date and time
    library for the Java programming language -
    http://joda-time.sourceforge.net.

    A recent initiative has been to build upon our foundation datetime
    classes to provided a much needed holiday library for Java. The purpose
    of such a library would be for a programmer to be able to query if today
    is a state holiday in France, or when the next Summer Bank Holiday is in
    the UK.

    The raw data for when holidays occur would appear to be an ideal
    candidate for the CLDR repository. The data is based on the following
    factors:
    - locale, such as region/country/international
    - organization, such as government/company/church
    - history, holidays vary by year, 'Spring Bank Holiday' can move from
    one date to another date, some holidays, like the 'Milenium day' happen
    just once
    - date rules, such as last Monday in August

    Rather than a small project like ours attempting to categorize this, we
    would rather work with CLDR if at all possible! (Or alternately, perhaps
    this data is already available in a structured format, like the Olson
    Time Zone database?)

    We have so far developed a very *rough* first draft XML structure for
    the data. I have attached the DTD and the data for the UK that I have so
    far gathered to act as an example.

    This mail is intended to gather feedback and opinions. (If its the wrong
    mailing list, wrong process or otherwise invalid please inform me and
    apologies!) I can be contacted privately too at this emails address if
    desired.

    Looking forward to feedback :-)

    Stephen






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