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FW: Time Zone abbreviations - request
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Feb. 25, 2008

Feb. 25, 2008

I'm forwarding this message from Ilya Stein, who is not on the time zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the time mailing list, please direct replies appropriately. --ado -----Original Message----- From: Ilya.Shtein(a)metavante.com [mailto:Ilya.Shtein@metavante.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 5:59 To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Cc: Troy.Bradley(a)metavante.com Subject: Time Zone abbreviations - request Hello, Our company is in need for standard abbreviations that would map one-to-one to the names used in the Olson database. These abbreviations must be as short as possible and significantly shorter than the conventional Olson names. We can definitely come up with our own abbreviations, but I am wondering if any such abbreviations exist in the Olson db. This is important because we want to be able to point our external partners to a source they are already familiar with, rather than invent something homegrown and impose it on our partners. If such abbreviations do not exist, is it possible to create them? We think it will be beneficial for many users who have space limitations and can't use the Olson names "as is", but need access to the functionality. We are willing to create such list, work with the keepers of the Olson DB to make it official, and maintain the list if needed. One possible implementation could consist of two parts: 1) a two-letter ocean/continent abbreviation: Africa Af America Am Antarctica An Arctic Ar Asia As Atlantic At Australia Au Europe Eu Indian In Mideast Me Pacific Pa Miscellaneous <no abbreviation> 2) an abbreviation of the city name; we haven't done any research yet of how many letters are needed, but something like a standard airport code could be used here, perhaps with 1-2 additional characters for additional information (for example, Riyadh87 would be RUH87). We are very interested in getting the answer as soon as possible. Thank you, ----------------------------------------- Ilya Shtein Enterprise Software Architecture Metavante Technologies ilya.shtein(a)metavante.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- This message contains confidential and proprietary information of the sender, and is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other person is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the e-mail sender immediately, and delete the original message without making a copy.

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Time Zone abbreviations - request
by Ilya.Shtein＠metavante.com Feb. 20, 2008

Feb. 20, 2008

Hello, Our company is in need for standard abbreviations that would map one-to-one to the names used in the Olson database. These abbreviations must be as short as possible and significantly shorter than the conventional Olson names. We can definitely come up with our own abbreviations, but I am wondering if any such abbreviations exist in the Olson db. This is important because we want to be able to point our external partners to a source they are already familiar with, rather than invent something homegrown and impose it on our partners. If such abbreviations do not exist, is it possible to create them? We think it will be beneficial for many users who have space limitations and can't use the Olson names "as is", but need access to the functionality. We are willing to create such list, work with the keepers of the Olson DB to make it official, and maintain the list if needed. One possible implementation could consist of two parts: 1) a two-letter ocean/continent abbreviation: Africa Af America Am Antarctica An Arctic Ar Asia As Atlantic At Australia Au Europe Eu Indian In Mideast Me Pacific Pa Miscellaneous <no abbreviation> 2) an abbreviation of the city name; we haven't done any research yet of how many letters are needed, but something like a standard airport code could be used here, perhaps with 1-2 additional characters for additional information (for example, Riyadh87 would be RUH87). We are very interested in getting the answer as soon as possible. Thank you, ----------------------------------------- Ilya Shtein Enterprise Software Architecture Metavante Technologies ilya.shtein(a)metavante.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- This message contains confidential and proprietary information of the sender, and is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other person is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the e-mail sender immediately, and delete the original message without making a copy.

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TZ
by Andrew Novick Feb. 19, 2008

Feb. 19, 2008

Hello, I am Andrew Novick from the NIST Time and Frequency Division. Although we are not an official source for time zones, we do use time zone data for our higher uncertainty time dissemination methods, like the www.time.gov web site. We have been talking to the DOT and GPO about TZ standards. I have not waded through the TZarchive completely, but can you give me a primer on it's reference sources and intent? One of your current interests is whether or not it is imperative to keep 3-letter TZ designations. With zones like Chamorro, Hawaii-Aleutian and Alaska, many sources have used 4-letter designations. Thanks! Andrew Novick NIST novick(a)nist.gov 303-497-3378

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Withdraw logwtmp.c from time zone distribution?
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Feb. 15, 2008

Feb. 15, 2008

The file "logwtmp.c" is part of the time zone package to ensure that a "date" command can be compiled. The time zone Makefile notes that: # We use the system's logwtmp in preference to ours if available. Well then: are there any systems out there today that need the time zone package's version of logwtmp.c? If there aren't, we can drop logwtmp.c from the package. If there are, we need to provide compile-time control over whether time stamps written to the log file are four bytes (to be compatible with historic practice) or eight bytes (the emerging width of time stamps). --ado

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FW: FW: when did China adopt one time zone?
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Feb. 11, 2008

Feb. 11, 2008

I'm forwarding this message from Thomas S. Mullaney, who is not on the time zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the time zone mailing list should direct replies appropriately. --ado -----Original Message----- From: Thomas S. Mullaney [mailto:tsmullaney@stanford.edu] Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 3:50 To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Cc: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: Re: FW: when did China adopt one time zone? I think you're combining two subjects that need to treated separately: daylight savings (which, you're correct, wasn't implemented until the 1980s) and the unified time zone centered near Beijing (which was implemented in 1949). Briefly, there was also a "Lhasa Time" in Tibet and "Urumqi Time" in Xinjiang. The first was ceased, and the second eventually recognized (again, in the 1980s). At 11:50 AM -0800 2/11/08, Paul Eggert wrote: > > From: Thomas S. Mullaney [mailto:tsmullaney@stanford.edu] >> Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 3:55 > >> This is a project I started thinking about this past summer - a >> fascinating topic, no? > >Yes, quite addictive.... > >Perhaps there is a confusion between two different topics here. The >tz database is mostly concerned with the actual clock settings; it >doesn't record (except in comments) whether the time zone is called >"Beijing Time" or "Beiping Time" or something else. Historically, >Beijing Time (under whatever name) covered just part of the territory >of China; the question the tz database is concerned with is when this >was expanded to include the whole country. You can find a map of the >old "Beiping Time" (perhaps "Chungyuan Time" is a better name) zone in ><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_China>. What's missing is when >that time zone expanded to included the whole country. > >I just now checked Google News for western news sources that talk >about China's single time zone, and couldn't find anything before 1986 >talking about China being in one time zone. (That article was: Jim >Mann, "A clumsy embrace for another western custom: China on daylight >time--sort of", Los Angeles Times, 1986-05-05. By the way, this >article confirms the tz database's data claiming that China began >observing daylight saving time in 1986.) > >Obviously this simple search isn't conclusive, as it doesn't include >reliable Chinese sources; still, it is not at all clear from the data >mentioned above that China switched to a single time zone in 1949. -- --- Thomas S. Mullaney Assistant Professor Modern Chinese History Department of History Stanford University 450 Serra Mall, Bld 200 Stanford, CA 94305-2024 T (650) 736-8386 F (650) 725-0597

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FW: when did China adopt one time zone?
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Feb. 11, 2008

Feb. 11, 2008

I'm forwarding this message from Thomas S. Mullaney, who is not on the time zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the time zone mailing list should direct replies appropriately. --ado From: Thomas S. Mullaney [mailto:tsmullaney@stanford.edu] Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 3:55 To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: Re: when did China adopt one time zone? Dear Paul, Thanks for your email. The dating of "Beijing Time" is a little tricky, but thanks to Guo Qingsheng, a scholar and engineer at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shaanxi Observatory, we know that the implementation of Beijing Time must have come after September 27, 1949 - the date on which the official name of Beiping (Northern Peace) was changed to Beijing (Northern Capital) - and some time before October 7 - the date of the earliest source which Guo has found containing the term "Beijing Time." This is a project I started thinking about this past summer - a fascinating topic, no? Sincerely, Tom Mullaney In a book review in today's issue of _Science_ you reported that the Chinese government in 1949 opted to observe one time zone. This caught my interest because I help maintain the tz database, which records histories of time zone and daylight saving changes all over the world. The tz database is used by computer clocks all over the world, including what I expect are millions of clocks in China, so I'd like to get the details right. Here's the problem: the tz database, following Shanks & Pottenger (2003), records that the China switched to a single time zone on May 1, 1980, not in 1949. Since you are a historian of China I expect that you have a lot better sources than we do. Can you please mention the sources for the claim that the clocks changed in 1949 rather than in 1980? Thanks for any info you can provide. I'll CC: this message to the tz database mailing list, to give them a heads-up on this query. -- Paul Eggert, UCLA Computer Science Dept. References: Thomas S. Mullaney, Change of time over changing time. Science 319 (5864), 729 (2008-02-08), DOI: 10.1126/science.1152851, <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5864/729a>. Paul Eggert & Arthur David Olson, Sources for time zone and daylight saving time data <http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm> (2007-12-31); also see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoneinfo>. Thomas G. Shanks and Rique Pottenger, The International Atlas (6th edition). San Diego: ACS Publications, Inc. (2003). -- --- Thomas S. Mullaney Assistant Professor Modern Chinese History Department of History Stanford University 450 Serra Mall, Bld 200 Stanford, CA 94305-2024 T (650) 736-8386 F (650) 725-0597

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Atendimento online e Rastreador de visitantes
by Chat Comercial Feb. 11, 2008

Feb. 11, 2008

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FW: FW: Corrections to historic German timezone information
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Feb. 11, 2008

Feb. 11, 2008

I'm forwarding this message from Sebastian Wangnick, who is not on the time zone mailing list (at least not at the address below). Those of you who are on the time zone mailing list should direct replies appropriately. --ado -----Original Message----- From: Sebastian Wangnick [mailto:sebastian.nospam01@wangnick.de] Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 5:09 To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: WG: FW: Corrections to historic German timezone information Dear all, it seems the email below did not reach the mailing list. Kind regards, Sebastian Wangnick -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Sebastian Wangnick [mailto:sebastian.nospam01@wangnick.de] Gesendet: Dienstag, 29. Januar 2008 19:18 An: 'Paul Eggert' Cc: 'tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov' Betreff: AW: FW: Corrections to historic German timezone information Dear Paul, I understand your concern. As proposed, the timezone Europe/Berlin would be applicable for the "western" countries of the state of Germany and the western part of Berlin, and Europe/BerlinEast for what was formerly first the Sowjet zone and later the state GDR, namely the "eastern" countries of the state of Germany (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Thüringen) and the eastern part of Berlin. Creation of individual timezones for each of the countries of Germany is thus unneccessary. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Deutschland_politisch_bunt.png However, if you can maintain only one timezone for the state of Germany, you should probably use the new definition of Europe/Berlin, limiting the error in 1945 to the smaller territory and population, but please note that this would be considered politically incorrect by said population. In this case we will privately maintain a modified copy of the tz database. Kind regards, Sebastian Wangnick

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when did China adopt one time zone?
by Paul Eggert Feb. 8, 2008

Feb. 8, 2008

In a book review in today's issue of _Science_ you reported that the Chinese government in 1949 opted to observe one time zone. This caught my interest because I help maintain the tz database, which records histories of time zone and daylight saving changes all over the world. The tz database is used by computer clocks all over the world, including what I expect are millions of clocks in China, so I'd like to get the details right. Here's the problem: the tz database, following Shanks & Pottenger (2003), records that the China switched to a single time zone on May 1, 1980, not in 1949. Since you are a historian of China I expect that you have a lot better sources than we do. Can you please mention the sources for the claim that the clocks changed in 1949 rather than in 1980? Thanks for any info you can provide. I'll CC: this message to the tz database mailing list, to give them a heads-up on this query. -- Paul Eggert, UCLA Computer Science Dept. References: Thomas S. Mullaney, Change of time over changing time. Science 319 (5864), 729 (2008-02-08), DOI: 10.1126/science.1152851, <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5864/729a>. Paul Eggert & Arthur David Olson, Sources for time zone and daylight saving time data <http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm> (2007-12-31); also see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoneinfo>. Thomas G. Shanks and Rique Pottenger, The International Atlas (6th edition). San Diego: ACS Publications, Inc. (2003).

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WG: FW: Corrections to historic German timezone information
by Sebastian Wangnick Feb. 4, 2008

Feb. 4, 2008

Dear all, it seems the email below did not reach the mailing list. Kind regards, Sebastian Wangnick -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Sebastian Wangnick [mailto:sebastian.nospam01@wangnick.de] Gesendet: Dienstag, 29. Januar 2008 19:18 An: 'Paul Eggert' Cc: 'tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov' Betreff: AW: FW: Corrections to historic German timezone information Dear Paul, I understand your concern. As proposed, the timezone Europe/Berlin would be applicable for the "western" countries of the state of Germany and the western part of Berlin, and Europe/BerlinEast for what was formerly first the Sowjet zone and later the state GDR, namely the "eastern" countries of the state of Germany (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Thüringen) and the eastern part of Berlin. Creation of individual timezones for each of the countries of Germany is thus unneccessary. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Deutschland_politisch_bunt.png However, if you can maintain only one timezone for the state of Germany, you should probably use the new definition of Europe/Berlin, limiting the error in 1945 to the smaller territory and population, but please note that this would be considered politically incorrect by said population. In this case we will privately maintain a modified copy of the tz database. Kind regards, Sebastian Wangnick

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Re: FW: Corrections to historic German timezone information
by Paul Schauble Feb. 4, 2008

Feb. 4, 2008

It might be easier to acknowledge the west/east Berlin split than to figure out which single rule is better. The problem I see is that in reality the presnt day Berlin and the historic Berlin did not exist for 40 years. I am not sure this can be ignored. ++PLS ----- Original Message ----- From: Markus Scherer <markus.icu(a)gmail.com> To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov <tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov> Cc: Sebastian Wangnick <sebastian.nospam01(a)wangnick.de>; tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov <tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov> Sent: Sun Feb 03 15:58:24 2008 Subject: Re: FW: Corrections to historic German timezone information On Jan 28, 2008 3:59 PM, Paul Eggert <eggert(a)cs.ucla.edu> wrote: > Because of this rule, the 1945 divergence doesn't justify having two > separate entries for Berlin. However, we should have the correct > entry for Berlin, which raises the question: where is the commonly > accepted center of Berlin? If the center is in the former Soviet > zone, tz's Europe/Berlin should use what is in the proposed > Europe/BerlinEast zone. If Berlin's center is in the former > west-Berlin zone, Europe/Berlin should change to match what is in the > proposed Europe/Berlin zone. I don't quite understand this. I do understand that it's overkill from the perspective of the TZ maintainers to precisely distinguish pre-1970 transitions, but it seems like the question of which part of Berlin to use should not depend as much on where the city center is but on the political continuity. markus -- Opinions expressed here may not reflect my company's positions unless otherwise noted.

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FW: Corrections to historic German timezone information
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Feb. 3, 2008

Feb. 3, 2008

I'm forwarding this message from Sebastian Wangnick, who is not on the time zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the time zone mailing list should direct replies appropriately. --ado From: Sebastian Wangnick [mailto:sebastian.nospam01@wangnick.de] Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 2:02 To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Cc: time(a)ptb.de Subject: Corrections to historic German timezone information Dear Madam, dear Sir, I understand that the historic time zone database you maintain is the basis of calendar computations in many computer systems and programming languages, including Linux and Tcl. We are using said data in some of our applications. Many thanks for your effort. Please find attached a few modifications to your tz2007k data files, so as to bring them in line with the publications of the Arbeitsgruppe 4.41 of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt at http://www.ptb.de/de/org/4/44/441/salt.htm. The mistake in tz2007k is that the special 1945 rules for East Berlin and the German Sowjet Zone mentioned in bullet point c) of the website above are applied to Germany in general. The modifications return Europe/Berlin to the standard rules a) and b), and introduce a new zone Europe/BerlinEast where a), b) and c) are applied. Cc to the PTB for information. Kind regards, Sebastian Wangnick -- Sebastian Wangnick Lammersdorfer Str. 61 D-52159 Roetgen/Rott

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Fw: GUATEMALA from DST 30 APR to 29 SEP 2008
by Gwillim Law Feb. 3, 2008

Feb. 3, 2008

Risto Nykänen wrote me that Guatemala is going to observe DST from 2008-04-30 to 2008-09-29. Searching for confirmation, I found an article at http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2008/enero/29/217165.html, apparently from a Guatemalan newspaper. It says: "El Gobierno guatemalteco adelantará la hora oficial en a partir del 30 de abril en un intento por reducir la demanda de energía eléctrica. "'Ya es un hecho, se va a cambiar a finales de abril para tener horario de verano', dijo el vocero presidencial Fernando Barillas. "Con la medida el ejecutivo espera obtener un ahorro de 60 megavatios diarios entre el 30 de abril y el 30 de septiembre, cuando termine el horario especial. ..." My translation: "The Guatemalan government will advance official time starting on April 30 in an initiative to reduce demand for electrical energy. "'It is already a done deed, we are going to change at the end of April to observe summer time', the presidential spokesman Fernando Barillas said. "With this measure the executive hopes to save 60 megawatts a day between April 30 and September 30, when the special schedule ends." Gwillim Law

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Another developer writing code to use the tz database
by Goudge, Stephen Jan. 28, 2008

Jan. 28, 2008

Hello, I'd like to express my gratitude and admiration to all the contributors to the time zone database. I am working to make use of the tzdata* information to attach timezone data plus a UTC timestamp to video recordings made by a DVR and to then, during playback, display the correct local time to match the video irrespective of the timezone settings on the playback computer. To fit the needs of the DVR, instead of storing an id string we have to store (at most) a 16-bit integer, so there is a C enum plus lookup table to map from these integer 'tz codes' to string ids that can be matched against the names in the tzdata files. So obviously there is an immediate maintenance need to keep the enum and mapping in step with tzdata - and this has an interesting correspondence to the declared needs of the CLDR project in terms of the stability of the tz id strings... For various reasons, including the need for playback to operate under Windows and to fit the new functionality into an existing code base, I opted to modify 'zic' and all the time functions (localtime etc). The time functions are changed to remove the limitations of the Posix approach (setting a global TZ, formatting one time value, resetting the global TZ...) and to convert the representation from time_t to the one we use internally (effectively Windows FILETIME as a 64-bit value); the results have then been attached to the C++ 'time' classes we use. 'zic' was then modified to change the epoch etc to match FILETIME and then, as I really didn't want to dump a load of settings into the Registry nor create a raft of files to tempt our Users to fiddle, write out a single Zip archive with the compiled tz data. Both of these items - the C library containing the enum and the C++ library with modified 'zic' etc - are Open Source, although I haven't "published" them on any websites or repositories (well, not recently enough to contain these TZ related tweaks). I would welcome any interest in seeing this code, if only to give the impetus to tidy it up well enough to "publish" (although, a warning, this is "Yet Another Pile of Someone's Favourite Stuff" and the TZ materials are currently fairly well integrated into the middle of it all). Regards, Stephen Goudge Transport R&D Petards Joyce-Loebl Gateshead, UK Private, Confidential and Privileged. This e-mail and any files and attachments transmitted with it are confidential and/or privileged. They are intended solely for the use of the intended recipient(s). The content of this e-mail and any file or attachment transmitted with it may have been changed or altered without the consent of the author. If you are not the intended recipient, please note that any review, dissemination, disclosure, alteration, printing, circulation or transmission of this e-mail and/or any file or attachment transmitted with it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this e-mail or any file or attachment transmitted with it in error please notify the IT Manager, Petards Joyce-Loebl Limited, 390 Princesway, Gateshead, NE11 0TU, telephone no: +44 191 4203000. Petards Joyce-Loebl Limited is registered in England under number 2170100 DISCLAIMER: Privileged / Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not copy or deliver this message to anyone. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email messages of this kind. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of my company shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it. _____________________________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by Petards Joyce-Loebl. The service is powered by MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email. _____________________________________________________________________________________

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about San Luis, Argentina, timezone changes
by Mariano Absatz Jan. 28, 2008

Jan. 28, 2008

Hi people, I'm sorry for being silent so far... I've been on Holidays (it's plain summer down here, kinda like August up there)... in fact, the first days of 2008 I've been in the Province of San Luis (but before the announcement of San Luis going back to UTC-3). I just arrived from the second part of my vacation (in the Province of Buenos Aires) a few hours ago, and I've been completely off-line (otherwise, it wouldn't actually be a vacation :-) ) I can confirm that the Province of San Luis (and so far only that province) decided to go back to UTC-3 effective midnight Jan 20th 2008 (that is, Monday 21st at 0:00 is the time the clocks were delayed back 1 hour), and they intend to keep UTC-3 as their timezone all year round (that is, unless they change their mind any minute now). I can't see the official San Luis website since their DNS servers are quite silent today (in fact they seem not be routeable today from 3 different places) :-( So we'll have to add yet another city to 'southamerica' (I think San Luis city is the mos populated city in the Province, so it'd be America/Argentina/San_Luis... of course I can't remember if San Luis's history of particular changes goes along with Mendoza or San Juan :-( (I only remember not being able to collect hard facts about San Luis back in 2004, when these provinces changed to UTC-4 for a few days, I mailed them personally and never got an answer). As for the origin of the problem, it has many faces: * *Political:* If the Governor of a Province is somehow /against/ the National Government, then, it's Province is more likely to diverge from the National Government timezone proposal. * *Geographical:* As you can see in http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/world_tzones.php Most of Argentina is geographically in UTC-4. NONE of it is in UTC-3. A small part of the SouthWest is actually in UTC-5 (like Chile). The current UTC-3 is originated in a DST mostly used between 1930 and 1969 (UTC-4 was the "official" timezone at that time) that "never went back" after being turned "on" in 1969-10-05... after that, it was kinda "renamed" to official (non-DST) time and at some point, UTC-2 was started to be used as DST (in 1974 and then between 1988 and 1993 and some other years after that). The West-most Provinces (Mendoza, San Juan, San Luis, Neuquen, Catamarca, etc.) started a crusade in 2004 to re-install UTC-4 as the standard (winter) time and UTC-3 as the DST, but they failed in disorder (and thus generated some chaos in tzdata) * *Cultural:* Part of the problem is originated in our culture... as of the end of the 20th Century and beginning of the 21st, most of Argentine people is *very* used to dinner at *night*... that is, you can't call it *dinner* if there's daylight... most of start having dinner somewhere between 9PM and 10PM or later... if Argentina uses UTC-2 in the summer (when the daylight lasts longer), the more to the West and to the South you go, the later daylight goes off... The first week of January 2008, using UTC-2, I've been in the NorthEast of San Luis and the daylight disappeared after 10PM, so everybody went to dinner at about 10:30PM or later, so, instead of saving electricity, most people used the same or more electricity than before the change. My parents just came back from El Calafate (in the SouthWest of the Province of Santa Cruz) and they told me daylight was going off at about 11:30 PM. Another cultural problem is that Argentina, although being a federal country (at least in the papers), which somehow gives some autonomy to the Provinces, is not used to have more than one timezone (as the USA is), and, like western Europe, works better within one timezone... the struggle is about which timezone it is... Regards. -- Mariano Absatz - "El Baby" baby(a)baby.com.ar -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- * TagZilla 0.066 * http://tagzilla.mozdev.org

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Corrections to historic German timezone information
by Sebastian Wangnick Jan. 27, 2008

Jan. 27, 2008

Dear Madam, dear Sir, I understand that the historic time zone database you maintain is the basis of calendar computations in many computer systems and programming languages, including Linux and Tcl. We are using said data in some of our applications. Many thanks for your effort. Please find attached a few modifications to your tz2007k data files, so as to bring them in line with the publications of the Arbeitsgruppe 4.41 of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt at http://www.ptb.de/de/org/4/44/441/salt.htm. The mistake in tz2007k is that the special 1945 rules for East Berlin and the German Sowjet Zone mentioned in bullet point c) of the website above are applied to Germany in general. The modifications return Europe/Berlin to the standard rules a) and b), and introduce a new zone Europe/BerlinEast where a), b) and c) are applied. Cc to the PTB for information. Kind regards, Sebastian Wangnick -- Sebastian Wangnick Lammersdorfer Str. 61 D-52159 Roetgen/Rott

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San Luis time change
by Jesper Norgaard Welen Jan. 26, 2008

Jan. 26, 2008

Unfortunately the below page has become defunct, about the San Luis time change. Perhaps because it now is part of a group of pages "Most important pages of 2008". You can use http://www.sanluis.gov.ar/notas.asp?idCanal=8141&id=22834 instead it seems. Or use "Buscador" from the main page of the San Luis government, and fill in "huso" and click OK, and you will get 3 pages from which the first one is identical to the above. - Jesper -----Original Message----- From: Jesper Norgaard Welen [mailto:jnorgard@prodigy.net.mx] Sent: Viernes, 18 de Enero de 2008 22:57 To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: San Luis time change this Monday The page of the San Luis provincial government http://www.sanluis.gov.ar/notas.asp?idCanal=0&id=22812 confirms ...

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Problem with tzdata rule history in JavaScript running on top of Gecko
by José Miguel Parrella Romero Jan. 25, 2008

Jan. 25, 2008

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Greetings, Since 2007j, tzdata reflects the new Venezuelan timezone, UTC-0430 with the complete rule history: Zone America/Caracas -4:27:44 - LMT 1890 ~ ... ~ -4:30 - VET JavaScript applications running on Gecko-based programs such as Firefox and Thunderbird experience a weird behavior where the calendars and other applications are one day forward thus rendering most of these applications unusable. On the month of this switch (Dec 07), some calendars (i.e., the Lightning extension for Thunderbird) shown full rows of Dec 9th. in all the days of the month! I narrowed the problem to JavaScript applications running on Mozilla after testing CLI-based calendars and other calendars based on glibc, and finally testing with Konqueror with successful results. This problem has been already reported on Mozilla's Bugzilla. Anyway, if I remove the complete rule history and leave the current VET timezone (UTC-0430) as the only rule for America/Caracas, all applications work correctly, which is curious (and also non-desirable, since it misses the fact that applications using timestamps before the timezone changes will be taken into account with the correct calculations) Maybe someone could provide a pointer about this problem and why it's being seen only on Gecko applications. Jose -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHj2mTUWAsjQBcO4IRApC6AJ9SF64p9Oq9ZlHDyCogU+euYl/CVgCZAQHM hirlGBUqBSu+FRJRp2yhWnM= =5MmJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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proposed leapseconds change
by Arthur David Olson Jan. 22, 2008

Jan. 22, 2008

Here's a proposed change to leapseconds to reflect the new IERS bulletin. --ado ------- leapseconds ------- *** /tmp/geta9338 Tue Jan 22 10:49:08 2008 --- /tmp/getb9338 Tue Jan 22 10:49:08 2008 *************** *** 1,4 **** ! # @(#)leapseconds 8.4 # Allowance for leapseconds added to each timezone file. --- 1,4 ---- ! # @(#)leapseconds 8.5 # Allowance for leapseconds added to each timezone file. *************** *** 46,71 **** Leap 2005 Dec 31 23:59:60 + S # INTERNATIONAL EARTH ROTATION AND REFERENCE SYSTEMS SERVICE (IERS) # SERVICE INTERNATIONAL DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE ET DES SYSTEMES DE REFERENCE # # SERVICE DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE ! # OBSERVATOIRE DE PARIS # 61, Av. de l'Observatoire 75014 PARIS (France) # Tel. : 33 (0) 1 40 51 22 26 # FAX : 33 (0) 1 40 51 22 91 # Internet : services.iers(a)obspm.fr # ! # Paris, 28 June 2007 # ! # Bulletin C 34 # ! # To authorities responsible # for the measurement and ! # distribution of time # # INFORMATION ON UTC - TAI # ! # NO positive leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2007. # The difference between Coordinated Universal Time UTC and the # International Atomic Time TAI is : # --- 46,72 ---- Leap 2005 Dec 31 23:59:60 + S # INTERNATIONAL EARTH ROTATION AND REFERENCE SYSTEMS SERVICE (IERS) + # # SERVICE INTERNATIONAL DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE ET DES SYSTEMES DE REFERENCE # # SERVICE DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE ! # OBSERVATOIRE DE PARIS # 61, Av. de l'Observatoire 75014 PARIS (France) # Tel. : 33 (0) 1 40 51 22 26 # FAX : 33 (0) 1 40 51 22 91 # Internet : services.iers(a)obspm.fr # ! # Paris, 18 January 2008 # ! # Bulletin C 35 # ! # To authorities responsible # for the measurement and ! # distribution of time # # INFORMATION ON UTC - TAI # ! # NO positive leap second will be introduced at the end of June 2008. # The difference between Coordinated Universal Time UTC and the # International Atomic Time TAI is : # *************** *** 77,82 **** # will be no time step at the next possible date. # # Daniel GAMBIS ! # Director ! # Earth Orientation Center of IERS # Observatoire de Paris, France --- 78,83 ---- # will be no time step at the next possible date. # # Daniel GAMBIS ! # Head ! # Earth Orientation Center of the IERS # Observatoire de Paris, France

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FW: Bulletin C35
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Jan. 22, 2008

Jan. 22, 2008

I'm forwarding this message from Sascha Wildner (see below). --ado -----Original Message----- From: Sascha Wildner [mailto:swildner@erpicon.de] Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 4:54 To: Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Subject: Bulletin C35 Hi, Bulletin C35 is out, thus leapseconds needs slight adjustment in the next patch. http://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/bulletinc.dat [sending this off-list because I can't send mails from here using the address with which I'm subscribed to the list, and it seems that in this case my mails don't appear on the list anyway] Best regards, -- Sascha Wildner erpicon Software Development GmbH Neusser Str. 724-726 50737 Köln Germany Phone: +49 221 9746089 Fax: +49 221 9746099 Mobile: +49 174 9887655 eMail: swildner(a)erpicon.de

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Microsoft San Luis "confirmation"
by Jesper Norgaard Welen Jan. 21, 2008

Jan. 21, 2008

It turns out that Microsoft has acted more proactively than even tz database or World Time Explorer, in setting up a page for the San Luis inhabitants that by now will wake up Monday morning to a new schedule, one hour behind the rest of the country. The page about how to change Windows operating systems to accomodate the San Luis change, however they don't specify a new timezone, instead the rather more relaxed solution to go back to either the timezones "(GMT-3) Buenos Aires, Georgetown" or the intermediate timezone "(GMT-3) Georgetown" which both represents GMT-3 without DST implementation all year round: http://www.microsoft.com/argentina/dst/sanluis.aspx The below page recommends how to change the Argentina DST timezone properly to have the start and end times for the Argentina-country-wide change effectuated the 30.th. of December 2007: http://www.microsoft.com/argentina/dst/actualizacion.aspx At the time of writing it is Sunday 2007-01-20 22:35 CST -0600 and so it should be Monday 2007-01-21 02:35 ADT -0200 in most of Argentina and Monday 2007-01-21 1:35 SLST -0300 in the San Luis province. (I invented SLST for San Luis Standard Time, it is certainly not an official abbreviation!) Are there any news "on the ground" in San Luis that the change is going ahead? I'll take action tomorrow for WTE if this is the case. Regards, - Jesper Jesper Nørgaard Welen Email: jnorgard(a)Prodigy.Net.mx Project Leader (Líder de Proyecto) Software CIMMYT - Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo Dirección: CIMMYT Int. c/o Jesper Nørgaard Km. 45, Carretera México-Veracruz El Batán Texcoco, Edo. de México CP 56130 MEXICO Tel.: +52 (55) 58-04-20-04 ext. 1374 Fax: +52 (55) 58-04-75-58 Tel. Casa: 53-10-05-95 ó 53-10-97-78 Download the shareware program World Time Explorer, I made: http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/index.html

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Re: Why does localtime() call tzset() but localtime_r() not?
by Robbin Kawabata Jan. 18, 2008

Jan. 18, 2008

Note the latest Open Group localtime_r() man page excerpt below says localtime_r() should behave similarly to localtime() by calculating a time according to the timezone. Note the Change History description that on XSI systems, localtime_r() should set tzname, daylight, timezone - this is advisory, not mandatory; Change History is always advisory, and the word "should" (vs. "shall") is used. >From our standards person: "But, the normative text doesn't make it mandatory either. The way I read it, an implementation of localtime_r() is allowed to set tzname, but is not required to do so. If the implementation sets tzname, it is also allowed to set both daylight and timezone, but is not required to do so. If the implementation doesn't set tzname to match the converted time, it is not allowed to change either daylight or timezone." From: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/functions/localtime.html The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6 IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition Copyright ? 2001-2004 The IEEE and The Open Group, All Rights reserved. NAME localtime, localtime_r - convert a time value to a broken-down local time ... DESCRIPTION ... The relationship between a time in seconds since the Epoch used as an argument to localtime() and the tm structure (defined in the <time.h> header) is that the result shall be as specified in the expression given in the definition of seconds since the Epoch (see the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 4.14, Seconds Since the Epoch) corrected for timezone and any seasonal time adjustments, where the names in the structure and in the expression correspond. [Option End] [TSF] [Option Start] The same relationship shall apply for localtime_r(). [Option End] <<== ... [TSF] [Option Start] The localtime_r() function shall convert the time in seconds since the Epoch pointed to by timer into a broken-down time stored in the structure to which result points. The localtime_r() function shall also return a pointer to that same structure. TSF If the reentrant version does not set tzname, it shall not set daylight and shall not set timezone. ... CHANGE HISTORY ... Issue 6 ... IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 2-2004, item XSH/TC2/D6/56 is applied, adding a requirement that if localtime_r() does not set the tzname variable, it shall not set the daylight or timezone variables. On systems supporting XSI, the daylight, timezone, and tzname variables should all be set to provide information for the same timezone. This updates the description of localtime_r() to mention daylight and timezone as well as tzname. The SEE ALSO section is updated. > Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:59:45 -0800 > From: Paul Eggert <eggert(a)CS.UCLA.EDU> > Subject: Re: Why does localtime() call tzset() but localtime_r() not? > To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov > Cc: Time Zone Mailing List <tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov> > > "Jonathan Leffler" <jonathan.leffler(a)gmail.com> writes: > > > I guess the POSIX manual allows this > > POSIX is incoherent in this area. It places hardly any requirements > on localtime_r; for example, localtime_r can be an alias for gmtime_r. > > I think the intent is that localtime_r have read-only access to the > internal data that tzset initializes. However, there's no clear POSIX > requirement on the application to call tzset before calling > localtime_r, nor there is any requirement on the implementation to > behave as if tzset were called before execution begins. > > Since the standard is fuzzy in this area, portable code should invoke > tzset (or localtime or mktime or strftime) before invoking localtime_r. >

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Changing the DST
by praveen.patle＠us.abb.com Jan. 18, 2008

Jan. 18, 2008

Hello: We are trying to simulate the DST in our test environment. As part of this process, we want to modify the rules so that the short day and long day can be any day we choose. Currently, we chose lastSun of Feb as short day and lastSun of March as long day. Can you please provide us an example as to what needs to be changed in the "northamerica" file? We have changed the following in "northamerica" file: ---------------------------- # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule US 2007 max - Feb lastSun 2:00 0:00 D Rule US 2007 max - Mar lastSun 2:00 0 S --------------------------------------- Is there any other place we need to change in "northamerica" file? This northamerica file is from the tzdata version "tzdata2007k" The problem with this change is that one hour is being added to every hour subsequent to last Sunday in Feb until the actual Short day (March 9). After March 9, one hour is substracted from wall time from every hour until the actual Long Day (Nov 2). Are there any known bugs/fixes to "javazic" code? Your help will be very much appreciated. Best Regards, Praveen

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Argentina Province San Luis is planning to end DST earlier
by Alex Krivenyshev Jan. 17, 2008

Jan. 17, 2008

Here are articles that Argentina Province San Luis is planning to end DST as earlier as upcoming Monday January 21, 2008 or February 2008: Provincia argentina retrasa reloj y marca diferencia con resto del país (Argentine Province delayed clock and mark difference with the rest of the country) http://cl.invertia.com/noticias/noticia.aspx? idNoticia=200801171849_EFE_ET4373&idtel Es inminente que en San Luis atrasen una hora los relojes (It is imminent in San Luis clocks one hour delay) http://www.lagaceta.com.ar/vernotae.asp?id_nota=253414 http://www.worldtimezone.net/dst_news/dst_news_argentina02.html Alex Krivenyshev, http://www.worldtimezone.com/dst_news/ New York, NY

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Typo
by Sascha Wildner Jan. 17, 2008

Jan. 17, 2008

Small nit.. There's a typo in the README file: 'covar' should be 'cover' I think. Regards, Sascha

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