October 1997 - tz - lists.iana.org

Happy Leap Second!
by Chris Newman Nov. 24, 1997

Nov. 24, 1997

I hope everyone enjoys their extra second! This also serves as a test to see what really happens if there is a "60" for seconds in the date header. - Chris

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Time stamp(s)
by Olson, Arthur David Oct. 31, 1997

Oct. 31, 1997

Whatever number of stamps end up in the file, my guess is that the thing to do is put at the start of the file a count of the number of bytes worth of stamp that appear, then put the stamp information itself at the end of the file. This minimizes the encroachment on the twenty remaining bytes of "reserved for future use" space; it also would allow us to have longish, easy-for-humans-to-read stamp information (either in addition to or instead of shorter, easy-for-computers-to-process information). My sense is that one stamp might be sufficient. A client picking up time zone information from multiple sources would use the one with the largest stamp. The stamp might be automatically generated as a function of the maximum "until" time appearing on a "Zone" line for the zone in question and the maximum "from" and "to" years appearing on a "Rule" line for the zone in question. Doing this would eliminate the need for separate maintenance of information from which to generate stamps; it would also avoid adding information to the zic input files that old versions of zic would not be able to handle. The down side would be that if we learned of a correction to zone information that only affected past times, we wouldn't get an *automatic* update of the stamp for the zone. Comments? --ado

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Proposed DST change for Sydney Olympics
by Eric Ulevik Oct. 25, 1997

Oct. 25, 1997

SOCOG (the Sydney Organizing Commitee for the Olympic Games) have requested that daylight savings time start early in 2000, to make things easier when running the games. The proposed start date is 27 August 2000. This would mean Sydney having eight months of daylight savings time. Apparently the NSW Government is looking favourably on this proposal. Regards, Eric Ulevik Reference: Sunday Telegraph, 26 October 1997, page 26

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News from the UK
by peter＠aldie.co.uk Oct. 25, 1997

Oct. 25, 1997

The Independent (one of the quality broadsheet papers over here) has a piece today (25 Oct) about the clock change tomorrow morning. It can be found at http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/A2510709.html. The short summary: John Butterfill won't be having another go at changing the law. He doesn't know of any other MP who will try. The Home Office say the government has no plans to legislate either. The only other recent thing of relevence I have seen is that a tiny footnote in the White Paper on Scottish Devolution said that `the regulation of time zones' was one of the things that would be reserved to Westminster and wouldn't be devolved. The White Paper is at http://www.scottish-devolution.org.uk/white%20paper/papercon.htm with the footnote being in Chapter 3. Peter Ilieve peter(a)aldie.co.uk

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FW: Time Zone Data File Conventions
by Olson, Arthur David Oct. 17, 1997

Oct. 17, 1997

(Note that wally.wedel(a)central.sun.com is not on the time zone mailing list; be sure that a copy of any reply gets sent that way. --ado.) ---------- From: Waldo (Wally) Wedel [Sun Professional Services JDC][SMTP:wally.wedel@Central.Sun.COM] Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 1997 4:52 PM To: tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov Subject: Time Zone Data File Conventions Gentlemen: I am just finishing up implementing some general time zone classes in Java. I parse your data files and build time zone classes from them. Consequently, I have a few questions. 1) You use the concepts of "wall clock", "standard", and "GMT" time in specifying transition times. I'd like to verify just what these mean. a) Does "wall clock" mean simply take the time as given applying no corrections? b) Does "standard" mean apply DST time shift to given time to find true time? c) Does "GMT" mean apply GMT offset to given time to get true time? 2) Is the convention for rule naming that when searching for the applicable rule, one looks for a rule with the specified name covering the specified date? I assume that failure to find a rule implies no time shift. 3) The comments in the data files contain quite important information about the actual coded information. Have you considered converting them to HTML to get them better tagged? I'm particularly interested in tagging some kind of a long name usable in reports and like. I've been trying to figure out how to preserve them in an OODB so that they are properly associated with the data they describe. Thanks for any help you can provide. -- Wally Wedel Wally.Wedel(a)sun.com SunService Division (303) 804-3073 Java Design Center Fax: (303) 290-1696 5251 S DTC Parkway Englewood, CO 80111-2700

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FW: Time zone in Atikokan, Ontario, Canada
by Olson, Arthur David Oct. 17, 1997

Oct. 17, 1997

---------- From: msb@sq.com[SMTP:msb@sq.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 1997 2:09 AM To: ado(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov Cc: eggert(a)twinsun.com Subject: Time zone in Atikokan, Ontario, Canada If I look at my road atlases, I see a nice straight-line boundary between Eastern and Central Time in Ontario, following the 90th west meridian from the boundary with Manitoba to that with Minnesota. Atikokan is located about 80 miles west of the 90th meridian and about 120 miles west of Thunder Bay. Article in the Toronto Star, 1997-10-14: | Atikokan asked to vote on daylight savings time | | ATIKOKAN (CP) -- Voters here are being asked to decide | what time it should be. | | Like Saskatchewan, this northwestern Ontario community | of 4,000 does not change to daylight savings time. | | That means clocks are an hour behind the rest of the | province in the summer months. | | The chamber of commerce wants the town on eastern time | year-round because it says most of the community's | business dealings are with clients in that region. | | The question will be on the ballot in the Nov. 10 | municipal election. Presumably this means that (1) either the Canadian Press or the Toronto Star is unaware that not all of Ontario observes Eastern Time, and (2) Atikokan has been been observing UTC-5 = Eastern Standard Time = Central Daylight Time all year, and now proposes to move to Eastern Time. I thought the tz mailing list might be interested, if they hadn't already heard. I'm afraid I have no idea which level of government has official jurisdiction on the question here.

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Time Zone Data File Conventions
by Waldo (Wally) Wedel [Sun Professional Services JDC] Oct. 15, 1997

Oct. 15, 1997

Gentlemen: I am just finishing up implementing some general time zone classes in Java. I parse your data files and build time zone classes from them. Consequently, I have a few questions. 1) You use the concepts of "wall clock", "standard", and "GMT" time in specifying transition times. I'd like to verify just what these mean. a) Does "wall clock" mean simply take the time as given applying no corrections? b) Does "standard" mean apply DST time shift to given time to find true time? c) Does "GMT" mean apply GMT offset to given time to get true time? 2) Is the convention for rule naming that when searching for the applicable rule, one looks for a rule with the specified name covering the specified date? I assume that failure to find a rule implies no time shift. 3) The comments in the data files contain quite important information about the actual coded information. Have you considered converting them to HTML to get them better tagged? I'm particularly interested in tagging some kind of a long name usable in reports and like. I've been trying to figure out how to preserve them in an OODB so that they are properly associated with the data they describe. Thanks for any help you can provide. -- Wally Wedel Wally.Wedel(a)sun.com SunService Division (303) 804-3073 Java Design Center Fax: (303) 290-1696 5251 S DTC Parkway Englewood, CO 80111-2700

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sri lanka timezone
by itojun＠itojun.org Oct. 15, 1997

Oct. 15, 1997

Could this be merged into FreeBSD 2.2.5-RELEASE? (and other appropriate database repositories) For details, see FreeBSD problem report #3775. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=3775 itojun ------- Forwarded Message Return-Path: samath(a)slt.lk Return-Path: samath(a)slt.lk Received: from lakdiva.slt.lk (lakdiva.slt.lk [204.143.96.17]) by coconut.itojun.org (8.8.5/3.6Wbeta6) with ESMTP id PAA10698 for <itojun(a)itojun.org>; Wed, 15 Oct 1997 15:56:53 +0900 (JST) Received: from Penta.sth.slt.lk (colombo4-tty7.slt.lk [204.143.98.135]) by lakdiva.slt.lk (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA05854 for <itojun(a)itojun.org>; Wed, 15 Oct 1997 12:56:27 +0600 (GMT+0600) Message-Id: <2.2.32.19971015125504.009fcb84(a)slt.lk> X-Sender: samath(a)slt.lk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 12:55:04 +0000 To: Jun-ichiro Itoh <itojun(a)itojun.org> From: Samath Wijesundera <samath(a)slt.lk> Subject: Re: conf/3775: Time Zone for Sri Lanka - LKT X-Filter: mailagent [version 3.0 PL56] for itojun(a)itojun.org Yes the time zone of Sri Lanka is now different it is GMT + 6:00 now, it will be the Sri Lanka's Permanent time zone ! The following is correct # <URL:http://www.virtual-pc.com/lankaweb/news/items/240596-2.html> (1996-05-24) # reported ``the country's standard time will be put forward by one hour at # midnight Friday (1830 GMT) `in the light of the present power crisis'.'' # Transitions before 1996 are from Shanks (1991). # # From Dharmasiri Senanayake, Sri Lanka Media Minister (1996-10-24), as quoted # in <URL:news:54rka5$m5h@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net> (1996-10-26): # With effect from 12.30 a.m. on 26th October 1996 # Sri Lanka will be six (06) hours ahead of GMT. # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Asia/Colombo 5:19:24 - LMT 1880 5:20 - CEYT 1906 # Ceylon Time 5:30 - IST 1942 Jan 5 5:30 0:30 IHST 1942 Sep 5:30 1:00 IST 1945 Oct 16 2:00 5:30 - IST 1996 May 25 0:00 6:30 - LKT 1996 Oct 26 0:30 6:00 - LKT - - Samath At 02:42 PM 10/15/97 +0900, you wrote: >I don't know if it is correct, but do you mean the following >line in >http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/share/zoneinfo/asia?rev=1.11 >should be changed? > 6:30 - LKT # Sri Lanka Time > > ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Does Aix support this code???
by Briggman, Monica Oct. 14, 1997

Oct. 14, 1997

Does this timezone data and code work on AIX ?? Thanks, Monica

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RE: references to `africa' file for zone naming and abbrev. conve ntions.
by Olson, Arthur David Oct. 9, 1997

Oct. 9, 1997

> A minor nit, but when the zone naming and abbreviation conventions > were moved from tzdata/africa to tzcode/Theory cooresponding cross > references in the comments (See the `africa' file for time zone naming > and abbreviation conventions) comments in other data files were not > updated. Thanks for the catch. I've simply eliminated the cross references to avoid dangling pointers to a "Theory" file that some vendors may not distribute. Folks can expect to see the deletions (or rather not see them) the next time a tzdata archive goes out. --ado

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