[rch]

Then eventually you give up on all that and try to focus on building a datetime library that works the way you want it to.

[falcolas]

Yup, done that one too. Ended up falling back on using the Linux zoneinfo database and accepting that I'm unlikely to do better (and keep up with it, no less).

[azinman2]

I would _highly_ recommend never to do this. Date/time is complex in so many subtle ways, least of which is staying up to date on changes. Because its so fundamental every language is likely to have a mature, maintained, and roughly canonical library to use.