[New-bugs-announce] [issue40933] zoneinfo may give incorrect dst() in Europe/Minsk in 1942

[Paul Ganssle]

New submission from Paul Ganssle <p.ganssle at gmail.com>:

Related to bpo-40930 and bpo-40931, it *seems* that in 1942 only, `zoneinfo.ZoneInfo` returns -01:00 for DST in Europe/Minsk:

    >>> from datetime import datetime, timedelta
    >>> from backports.zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
    >>> datetime(1942, 1, 1, tzinfo=ZoneInfo("Europe/Minsk")).dst() // 
    timedelta(hours=1)

It looks like this occurs because they transitioned directly from MSK to CEST, jumping back 1 hour, then started switching between CEST and CET.

$ zdump -V -c 1941,1944 'Europe/Minsk'
Europe/Minsk  Fri Jun 27 20:59:59 1941 UT = Fri Jun 27 23:59:59 1941 MSK isdst=0 gmtoff=10800
Europe/Minsk  Fri Jun 27 21:00:00 1941 UT = Fri Jun 27 23:00:00 1941 CEST isdst=1 gmtoff=7200
Europe/Minsk  Mon Nov  2 00:59:59 1942 UT = Mon Nov  2 02:59:59 1942 CEST isdst=1 gmtoff=7200
Europe/Minsk  Mon Nov  2 01:00:00 1942 UT = Mon Nov  2 02:00:00 1942 CET isdst=0 gmtoff=3600
Europe/Minsk  Mon Mar 29 00:59:59 1943 UT = Mon Mar 29 01:59:59 1943 CET isdst=0 gmtoff=3600
Europe/Minsk  Mon Mar 29 01:00:00 1943 UT = Mon Mar 29 03:00:00 1943 CEST isdst=1 gmtoff=7200
Europe/Minsk  Mon Oct  4 00:59:59 1943 UT = Mon Oct  4 02:59:59 1943 CEST isdst=1 gmtoff=7200
Europe/Minsk  Mon Oct  4 01:00:00 1943 UT = Mon Oct  4 02:00:00 1943 CET isdst=0 gmtoff=3600

This might get fixed automatically if we do the "plurality" heuristic in bpo-40930, though we might also consider a heuristic that puts greater weight on a transition if the names associated with them different only by transforming a single letter, or insertion of a letter.

I am somewhat puzzled as to why only 1943 is affected, since I would have thought that all the CEST offsets in that stretch would be considered the same ttinfo (and thus all would be assigned the same dstoff).

----------
assignee: p-ganssle
messages: 371141
nosy: p-ganssle
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: zoneinfo may give incorrect dst() in Europe/Minsk in 1942
versions: Python 3.8, Python 3.9

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue40933>
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