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datetime.link/README.md

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# datetime.link
Readable links to a point in time
## Credits
- [GeoNames](https://www.geonames.org/) and its contributors
## Reporting Problems
File an [issue](https://github.com/serverwentdown/datetime.link/issues/new) on
GitHub.
## Rationale
Sometimes, you want to refer to a point in time, and also want to provide a
timezone converter for them. datetime.link provides links to points in time and
presents them in a set of selected timezones and/or local time.
## Compatibility
To ensure compatibility with non-JavaScript clients, the server responds with a
pure HTML page without local time. JavaScript provides the rendering of local
time and local time format using the native [Intl](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Intl/DateTimeFormat/DateTimeFormat)
and [Date](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date)
APIs, eventually the [Temporal API](https://github.com/tc39/proposal-temporal).
JavaScript also provides the visual editing interface for the date, time and
list of timezones to show in.
## Timezone Specifiers
[GeoNames](https://www.geonames.org/) data is used to generate
[`data/cities.json`](https://datetime.link/data/cities.json), a huge 5MB JSON
blob containing cities with a population greater than 15000. In the event this
is not enough, more cities can be included by using the alternate
`cities5000.txt` file.
The timezone specifiers are generated by the code in `scripts/data.go`, which
assemble an identifier replacing non-alphanumeric and quote characters with
underscores. Dashes then are used to join the city name, administrative division
level 1 names and country names.
Alternatively, a fixed timezone can be specified as an offset like `+08:00`.
This caters for scenarios where the local DST and other local time differences
should not be accounted for. These are guarenteed to be stable and accurate.
## Timezone Data
[Go relies on local tzdata](https://golang.org/pkg/time/#LoadLocation), and thus
`datetime.link` relies on it too.
## Upcoming Improvements
See [Issues](https://github.com/serverwentdown/datetime.link/issues).