GeoTime 1.0.0

dotnet add package GeoTime --version 1.0.0                
NuGet\Install-Package GeoTime -Version 1.0.0                
This command is intended to be used within the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio, as it uses the NuGet module's version of Install-Package.
<PackageReference Include="GeoTime" Version="1.0.0" />                
For projects that support PackageReference, copy this XML node into the project file to reference the package.
paket add GeoTime --version 1.0.0                
#r "nuget: GeoTime, 1.0.0"                
#r directive can be used in F# Interactive and Polyglot Notebooks. Copy this into the interactive tool or source code of the script to reference the package.
// Install GeoTime as a Cake Addin
#addin nuget:?package=GeoTime&version=1.0.0

// Install GeoTime as a Cake Tool
#tool nuget:?package=GeoTime&version=1.0.0                

GeoTime

GitHub .NET CodeQL

GeoTime aims to be a fast, lightweight, and memory-efficient C# library for querying timezone abbreviations.

Overview

Demo

GIF demonstrating the GeoTime library

Install

Package Manager Console:

PM> Install-Package GeoTime -Version 1.0.0

Nuget:

nuget install GeoTime -Version 1.0.0

.NET CLI:

dotnet add package GeoTime --version 1.0.0

System requirements

Architecture

  • TZAbbr: An entity representing an abbreviated timezone, which holds: a unique ID, an abbreviation, a name, and an offset (in seconds).
  • TZAbbrLookup: A high-level service that allows looking up information about abbreviated timezones
  • TZAbbrLookupFactory: A factory for creating instances of a TZAbbrLookup service
  • TZAbbrStore: A low-level service that holds a read-only dictionary, mapping unique primary keys/IDs to abbreviated timezone (IReadOnlyDictionary<int, TZAbbr>)
  • TZAmbiguityStore: A low level indexed service that holds a read-only dictionary, mapping timezone abbreviations to a set of timezone IDs (IReadOnlyDictionary<string, HashSet<int>>)
  • TZAScraper: A service that cleans and indexes the timezones.json into smaller and more usable data.

The concept of ambiguity

We say a timezone abbreviation is ambiguous, if it can possibly stand for multiple different timezones. For example, BST can mean:

Building the timezone data

The original timezone data is auto-extracted from an HTML table using a JS snippet, and then placed into data/timezones.json.

To build the data and make it usable, you can run the GeoTime.Build project, which will produce two files in the /artifacts folder:

  • List file - timezones.list.json: Holds a map which maps a unique primary key/ID to an abbreviated timezone.
  • Ambiguity file - timezones.ambiguity.json: Holds a map which maps the timezone abbreviations (string keys) to the unique ID of a timezone it can stand for (array of integers).

Notes: The following issues are being worked on.

  • The artifacts are not automatically placed into the artifacts folder, and will have to be manually moved from src/GeoTime.Build/bin/Release/net5.0 to artifacts.

Memory and performance

  • The datasets combined (already minified), totals to 20 KB.
    • Compressing into a ZIP will drop it to a total 6.17KB (3.24x smaller).
    • gzipping both files will drop it to a total 5.2KB (3.85x smaller).

Constructing the lookup service will take the most time, as this requires indexing all the timezone data by deserializing two JSON files into C# read-only dictionaries. After creating a lookup, querying for info will generally run under much quicker times.

Usage

TZAbbrLookup lookup = new TZAbbrLookupFactory().GetLookup();

Check if an abbreviation is ambiguous

Checking if an abbreviation is ambiguous takes constant time (O(1) time).

lookup.IsAbbrAmbiguous( "CST" ); // true
lookup.IsAbbrAmbiguous( "ART" ); // false

Get an abbreviated timezone by ID or name

Querying an abbreviated timezone by their...

  • ...unique integer ID takes O(1) time.
  • ...unique full name will take linear time (O(n) time), where n represents the number of timezone abbreviations.
TZAbbr novosibirsk = lookup.GetTimeZone( 149 );
// new TZAbbr( 149, "NOVST", "Novosibirsk Summer Time", 25200 )

TZAbbr argentina = lookup.GetTimeZone( "Argentina Time" );
// new TZAbbr( 22, "ART", "Argentina Time", -10800 )

Console.WriteLine( argentina.Abbr ); // "ART"
Console.WriteLine( argentina.OffsetInSeconds ); // -10800
Console.WriteLine( argentina.GetOffset().ToString() ); // "-03"

TZAbbr someTZ = lookup.GetTimeZone( "Foo" );
// throws TimeZoneNotFoundException

Get possible timezones from an abbreviation

Querying a list of timezones by abbreviation will take O(1+n) time, where n represents the number of timezones an abbreviation can possibly stand for. The first operation will be a dictionary lookup, and the n operations after will be dictionary lookups of the timezones by ID.

  • In average case and best case: O(2) (An abbreviation maps to 1 timezone)
  • In worst case: O(4) (An abbreviation maps to 3 timezones)
lookup.GetTimeZonesByAbbr( "CST" );
/**
   new HashSet<TZAbbr>() {
      new TZAbbr( 61, "CST", "Central Standard Time", -21600 ),
      new TZAbbr( 62, "CST", "China Standard Time", 28800 ),
      new TZAbbr( 63, "CST", "Cuba Standard Time", -18000 )
   }
 **/

lookup.GetTimeZonesByAbbr( "PGT" );
/**
   new HashSet<TZAbbr>() {
      new TZAbbr( 166, "PGT", "Papua New Guinea Time", 36000 )
   }
 **/

License

GeoTime is licensed under the MIT license.

Product Compatible and additional computed target framework versions.
.NET net5.0 is compatible.  net5.0-windows was computed.  net6.0 was computed.  net6.0-android was computed.  net6.0-ios was computed.  net6.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net6.0-macos was computed.  net6.0-tvos was computed.  net6.0-windows was computed.  net7.0 was computed.  net7.0-android was computed.  net7.0-ios was computed.  net7.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net7.0-macos was computed.  net7.0-tvos was computed.  net7.0-windows was computed.  net8.0 was computed.  net8.0-android was computed.  net8.0-browser was computed.  net8.0-ios was computed.  net8.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net8.0-macos was computed.  net8.0-tvos was computed.  net8.0-windows was computed. 
Compatible target framework(s)
Included target framework(s) (in package)
Learn more about Target Frameworks and .NET Standard.

NuGet packages

This package is not used by any NuGet packages.

GitHub repositories

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Version Downloads Last updated
1.0.0 437 2/28/2021