Installation Instructions for the TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB Package

The following instructions assume that you have already downloaded TimeZone-ExternalRepository-OlsonTZDB.zip from the Chronos web site (download link: http://www.chronos-st.org/downloads/VisualWorks/TimeZone-ExternalRepository-OlsonTZDB.zip).

1. Extract the contents of
TimeZone-ExternalRepository-OlsonTZDB.zip to a directory of your choice.  This should result in the following files appearing in your chosen directory:

        TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB.st
        TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB.pcl
        TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB.pst
        time-zones
        OlsonTimeZoneKeys.txt
        VWTimeZone-installation.html

2. Install the VisualWorks TimeZone Repository: Move or copy the the "time-zones" folder to $(VISUALWORKS)/bin (the bin subdirectory of the VisualWorks home folder,) so that  $(VISUALWORKS)/bin/time-zones contains the persistent representation of all the TimeZones in the external TimeZone repository (each TimeZone is in a separate file.) If you use multiple images, and they don't all use the same VisualWorks home directory (perhaps because they are different versions of VisualWorks, or because there are multiple users on multiple machines,) then the "time-zones" folder must be present in the $(VISUALWORKS)/bin folder for each value of $(VISUALWORKS) used by any of your images (Examples: C:\Smalltalk\VisualWorks\7.3.1\bin\time-zones,  /usr/local/devTools/Smalltalk/VisualWorks/7.4/bin/time-zones.) On Unix/MacOS X, symbolic links can be used to avoid having multiple copies of the repository.

3. Load the package TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB into your VisualWorks image: This can be done either by filing in TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB.st, by loading the parcel file TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB.pcl, or by loading the package TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB from the  Cincom Public PostGreSQL StORE Repository.

4. For example usage, see the method TimeZone class>>at:. The VisualWorks TimeZone Repository includes a serialized TimeZone for every time zone in the Olson Time Zone Database. The list of all 500+ time zone keys is in the file OlsonTimeZoneKeys.txt.

5. To generate the VisualWorks TimeZone Repository yourself, you must use a VisualWorks image in which Chronos has been installed.  The installation instructions for Chronos are available from the Chronos web site. Once Chronos has been installed, the VisualWorks TimeZone Repository may be generated by evaluating "ChronosSystemFacade current generateVWTimeZoneRepository."

Note 1:    The VisualWorks TimeZone Repository and the Chronos Time Zone Repository are quite different (altough the former is derived from the latter.)

Note 2:    Other than the fact that
Chronos is used to generate the VisualWorks TimeZone Repository, the package TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB does not depend on Chronos in any way, nor does Chronos depend on it.  Chronos does not need to be resident in the image in order to use the TimeZone-External Repository-Olson TZDB package. The sole connection or dependency between the two is the use of Chronos to generate the VisualWorks TimeZone Repository.