- tz - lists.iana.org

Solaris 2.2 has many timezone bugs
by eggert＠shadow.twinsun.com June 22, 1993

June 22, 1993

Solaris 2.2 seems based on a particularly ancient version of the timezone code. It has many bugs that, near as I can tell, were fixed as long ago as 1989 in the public domain version. This is a real step backwards from SunOS 4.1.x. The most serious bug will occur on October 24, 1993 in GB-Eire: Solaris 2.2's switch from summer to winter time will be delayed until October 31. There are some other bugs in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Israel, and Korea zones. I just filed an official bug report with Sun, but I don't have much hope of it having an effect in time. Perhaps someone with some influence at Sun can get them to upgrade to the latest tz code before Solaris 2.3 comes out. Or I could just post a note to comp.risks...

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Julian date conversion code
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com June 19, 1993

June 19, 1993

Does anyone know where I can find some public domain code that converts Julian (and Modified Julian) Dates to "seconds since start of (UNIX/GMT)" and back? thanks, Jim-Miller(a)suite.com

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Re: tz93c botches time zone transitions in Brazil
by ado June 18, 1993

June 18, 1993

Thanks for this new fix. Both it and the new data on Israel are now incorporated in ~ftp/pub/tzcode93d.tar.Z and ~ftp/pub/tzdata93d.tar.Z on elsie.nci.nih.gov (128.231.16.1). (And I think the woes of elsie's transition from being a Sun 3 to being a Sun 4 are over.) --ado

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tz93c botches time zone transitions in Brazil
by eggert＠twinsun.com June 18, 1993

June 18, 1993

Ed Reingold noticed that SunOS 4.1.2 mishandles the time zone transitions in Brazil. Typically, it claims that the transitions occur on Friday, whereas the rule says they should occur on Saturday. The bug is still present in tz93c (the 1993-06-06 version of the time zone code). I looked into the problem, and discovered that zic botches any rule whose ON field is of the form `DAY<=N', where DAY is not Sunday, and where the Nth day of the current year is not DAY. In this case, it acts as if you specified the previous day to DAY. As it happens, the only rules of this form in the database are those of Brazil. For example if you run `zdump -v Brazil/East' you'll see that most of the transitions occur on Friday, but they're all supposed to occur on Saturday. Here is a patch to tz93c. I'm amazed that this bug has never been reported in all these years. Shall we chalk it up to Brazil's strict import restrictions on American software? =================================================================== RCS file: zic.c,v retrieving revision 7.8 retrieving revision 7.8.1.1 diff -c -r7.8 -r7.8.1.1 *** zic.c 1993/06/06 23:31:38 7.8 --- zic.c 1993/06/18 02:58:46 7.8.1.1 *************** *** 1819,1825 **** } else { dayoff = oadd(dayoff, (long) -1); if (--wday < 0) ! wday = LDAYSPERWEEK; --i; } if (i < 0 || i >= len_months[isleap(y)][m]) { --- 1819,1825 ---- } else { dayoff = oadd(dayoff, (long) -1); if (--wday < 0) ! wday = LDAYSPERWEEK - 1; --i; } if (i < 0 || i >= len_months[isleap(y)][m]) {

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automated generation of the Zion rules
by eggert＠twinsun.com June 17, 1993

June 17, 1993

Here's a patch to the Zion rules that gives a program to generate the rules, plus the DST transitions for the years 2010 through 2037. =================================================================== RCS file: asia,v retrieving revision 1.1 retrieving revision 1.2 diff -c -r1.1 -r1.2 *** asia 1992/04/23 17:34:49 1.1 --- asia 1993/06/17 00:04:53 1.2 *************** *** 119,124 **** --- 119,157 ---- # [**] actually Saturday night as the Jewish day commences at nightfall. # [***] the Jewish Lunar New Year. + # From Paul Eggert (June 16, 1993). Ed Reingold and I converted the above + # rules into the following Emacs lisp code. It requires GNU Emacs 19.13 + # or later. If you run the code, the Zion rules will be inserted into + # your Emacs buffer. Reference: ``Calendrical Calculations'' by Nachum + # Dershowitz and Edward M. Reingold, Software--Practice and Experience, + # Volume 20, Number 9 (September, 1990), pages 899-928. + # + # (calendar-for-loop + # year from 1989 to 2037 do + # (let ((dst-starts + # (calendar-gregorian-from-absolute + # (calendar-dayname-on-or-before + # 0 + # (calendar-absolute-from-hebrew + # (list 1 28 (+ year 3760)))))) + # (dst-ends + # (calendar-gregorian-from-absolute + # (calendar-dayname-on-or-before + # 0 + # (- (calendar-absolute-from-hebrew (list 7 1 (+ year 3761))) 3))))) + # (insert (format "Rule\tZion\t%d\tonly\t-\t%3s\t%2d\t0:00\t1:00\tD\n" + # year + # (substring + # (calendar-month-name (extract-calendar-month dst-starts)) + # 0 3) + # (extract-calendar-day dst-starts))) + # (insert (format "Rule\tZion\t%d\tonly\t-\t%3s\t%2d\t0:00\t0:00\tS\n" + # year + # (substring + # (calendar-month-name (extract-calendar-month dst-ends)) + # 0 3) + # (extract-calendar-day dst-ends))))) + # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule Zion 1989 only - Apr 30 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1989 only - Sep 24 0:00 0:00 S *************** *** 162,167 **** --- 195,256 ---- Rule Zion 2008 only - Sep 21 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2009 only - Apr 19 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2009 only - Sep 13 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2010 only - Apr 11 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2010 only - Sep 5 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2011 only - May 1 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2011 only - Sep 25 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2012 only - Apr 15 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2012 only - Sep 9 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2013 only - Apr 7 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2013 only - Sep 1 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2014 only - Apr 27 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2014 only - Sep 21 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2015 only - Apr 12 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2015 only - Sep 6 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2016 only - May 1 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2016 only - Sep 25 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2017 only - Apr 23 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2017 only - Sep 17 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2018 only - Apr 8 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2018 only - Sep 2 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2019 only - Apr 28 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2019 only - Sep 22 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2020 only - Apr 19 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2020 only - Sep 13 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2021 only - Apr 4 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2021 only - Aug 29 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2022 only - Apr 24 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2022 only - Sep 18 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2023 only - Apr 16 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2023 only - Sep 10 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2024 only - May 5 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2024 only - Sep 29 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2025 only - Apr 20 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2025 only - Sep 14 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2026 only - Apr 12 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2026 only - Sep 6 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2027 only - May 2 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2027 only - Sep 26 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2028 only - Apr 23 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2028 only - Sep 17 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2029 only - Apr 8 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2029 only - Sep 2 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2030 only - Apr 28 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2030 only - Sep 22 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2031 only - Apr 20 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2031 only - Sep 14 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2032 only - Apr 4 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2032 only - Aug 29 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2033 only - Apr 24 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2033 only - Sep 18 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2034 only - Apr 16 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2034 only - Sep 10 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2035 only - May 6 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2035 only - Sep 30 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2036 only - Apr 20 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2036 only - Sep 14 0:00 0:00 S + Rule Zion 2037 only - Apr 12 0:00 1:00 D + Rule Zion 2037 only - Sep 6 0:00 0:00 S # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES/SAVE FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Israel 2:00 Zion I%sT

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time zone survey
by ado June 11, 1993

June 11, 1993

Attached are results from a casual time zone survey. Last week I ran through the news articles on nih-csl.dcrt.nih.gov (the nntp newsfeed system for elsie.nci.nih.gov) getting the "Date: " and "Message-ID: " line from each article. Article file names were obtained from the news history file to ensure that any cross-posted articles would only be used once. I tossed out data with unzoned time stamps, data without a recognizable domained system name in the Message-ID, and data from ".com" sites. This left 17,912 date/name pairs. I massaged the data into the form... 05210205 (AEST) megalink.apana.org.au 05010053 +0000 compex.e-burg.su ...where the first field gives two digits each of month, day, hour, and minute from the Date, the second field gives the time zone that appeared in the Date, and the third field is the system name from the Message-ID. This data is available in the file ~ftp/pub/zonesurvey on elsie.nci.nih.gov (128.231.16.1). Eighty-nine different zones showed up (sorted alphabetically here): (AEST) +0000 +0001 +0100 +02 +0200 +0300 +0400 +0500 +0530 +0600 +0611 +0700 +0730 +0800 +0930 +1 +1000 +1100 +1200 +1300 +1700 -0000 -0100 -0300 -0400 -0500 -0520 -0600 -0700 -0800 -1 -1000 -1200 -600 ACST ADT AEST AET ARG AST BSC BST CDT CED CEST CET CST DST EDT EDZ EET EMT EST GMT GMT+01 GMT+0200 GMT+1 GMT+12 GMT+1200 GMT+2 IDT IST JST LCL MDT MED MES MEST MESZ MET MEWT MEZ MST NDT NZDT NZST PDT PST SGP TUR TZONE U UT WET WET+0100 WST XDT Y The number of times each zone showed up (sorted by number of times here): 3820 -0400 1925 EDT 1902 -0500 994 EST 919 -0700 913 CDT 748 +0000 690 +0200 664 CST 655 PDT 621 +0100 583 -0600 499 +1000 467 MDT 398 PST 275 +1200 211 BST 170 +0001 153 MET 138 -0800 135 MST 123 +0300 116 CET 98 +0800 97 -0300 53 +0400 51 +0930 45 -0100 36 +1300 35 WET 33 -0000 27 UT 23 ACST 22 MEZ 22 NZST 20 +1700 20 GMT+12 17 IDT 16 TUR 14 MESZ 9 +02 8 MEST 8 WET+0100 7 +0600 7 CED 7 CEST 7 LCL 6 AET 6 DST 6 EET 6 EMT 5 AST 5 GMT 5 GMT+01 5 GMT+0200 5 U 4 -1000 4 IST 3 +0700 3 +1100 3 -0520 3 -1200 3 -600 3 EDZ 3 TZONE 3 Y 2 ADT 2 ARG 2 BSC 2 GMT+1200 2 MED 2 MES 2 SGP 1 (AEST) 1 +0500 1 +0530 1 +0611 1 +0730 1 +1 1 -1 1 AEST 1 GMT+1 1 GMT+2 1 JST 1 MEWT 1 NDT 1 NZDT 1 WST 1 XDT Aside from the 51 "+0930" articles from Australia, only four "oddball" numeric time zones show up, and each of them only shows up from one system (the Date and system name from the original data are shown here): 3 -0520 Wed, 2 Jun 93 22:22:00 -0520 freddy.ampr.ab.ca Thu, 3 Jun 93 20:08:00 -0520 freddy.ampr.ab.ca Sat, 5 Jun 93 16:05:00 -0520 freddy.ampr.ab.ca 1 +0530 1 Jun 93 15:30:55 +0530 imtech.ernet.in 1 +0611 Wed, 02 Jun 93 16:08:33 +0611 trashcan.hacktic.nl 1 +0730 6 Jun 1993 08:25:56 +0730 news.Colorado.EDU Time zone abbrevations that show up in tzdata93c.tar.Z files: ADT Atlantic Daylight Time AST Atlantic Standard Time BST British Standard Time CDT Central Daylight Time CET Central European Time CST Central Standard Time EDT Eastern Daylight Time EET Eastern European Time EST Eastern Standard Time IDT Israeli Daylight Time IST Israeli Standard Time JST Japanese Standard Time MDT Mountain Daylight Time MET Middle European Time MST Mountain Standard Time NZDT New Zealand Daylight Time NZST New Zealand Standard Time PDT Pacific Daylight Time PST Pacific Standard Time WET Western European Time WST Western Standard Time Time zone abbreviations that are fairly clear are: (AEST) Australian Eastern Standard Time (used only by one system) Fri, 21 May 93 02:05:36 (AEST) megalink.apana.org.au ACST Australian Central Standard Time 21 May 93 13:18:16 ACST state.systems.sa.gov.au Tue, 25 May 93 13:27:42 ACST cola.pax.tpa.com.au ... 4 Jun 93 00:47:42 ACST state.systems.sa.gov.au Sun, 06 Jun 93 19:13:17 ACST cola.pax.tpa.com.au AEST Australian Eastern Standard Time Fri, 04 Jun 93 21:47:10 AEST ese.escape.brisnet.org.au AET Australian Eastern Time (used only by one system) 10 May 93 08:50:04 AET licre.ludwig.edu.au 27 May 93 19:00:11 AET licre.ludwig.edu.au 28 May 93 12:46:13 AET licre.ludwig.edu.au 1 Jun 93 08:46:51 AET licre.ludwig.edu.au 1 Jun 93 09:02:16 AET licre.ludwig.edu.au 7 Jun 93 14:52:39 AET licre.ludwig.edu.au CED Central European Daylight 28 Apr 93 21:00:06 CED alphanet.alphanet.ch 27 May 93 22:53:59 CED sourcery.han.de 28 May 93 18:36:06 CED sourcery.han.de 1 Jun 93 22:16:54 CED sourcery.han.de 1 Jun 93 22:22:52 CED sourcery.han.de 1 Jun 93 22:45:24 CED sourcery.han.de 2 Jun 93 21:05:10 CED sourcery.han.de CEST Central European Standard Time Tue, 25 May 93 07:26:34 CEST obula.nbg.sub.org Tue, 25 May 93 15:58:02 CEST obula.nbg.sub.org Wed, 26 May 93 12:46:27 CEST obula.nbg.sub.org Tue, 01 Jun 93 11:18:35 CEST obula.nbg.sub.org Wed, 02 Jun 93 08:42:25 CEST obula.nbg.sub.org Fri, 04 Jun 1993 17:45:26 CEST oktagon.rd.sub.org Sun, 06 Jun 93 20:44:27 CEST scrum.greenie.muc.de MED Middle European Daylight (used only by one system) 3 Jun 93 00:17:24 MED lifestyle.rhein-main.de 6 Jun 93 12:27:48 MED lifestyle.rhein-main.de MES Middle European Standard (used only by one system) Sat, 22 May 93 12:46:44 MES wolferts.ka.sub.org Sun, 06 Jun 93 15:05:50 MES wolferts.ka.sub.org MESZ Middle European Standard Zone Tue, 25 May 1993 17:49:06 MESZ email.tuwien.ac.at Wed, 26 May 1993 12:12:26 MESZ gwdu14.gwdg.de Wed, 26 May 93 14:03:58 MESZ lbl.gov Fri, 28 May 1993 00:02:42 MESZ nasim.sta.sub.org Fri, 28 May 1993 00:03:34 MESZ nasim.sta.sub.org Fri, 28 May 1993 00:04:26 MESZ nasim.sta.sub.org Fri, 28 May 1993 00:12:50 MESZ nasim.sta.sub.org Fri, 28 May 1993 00:13:56 MESZ nasim.sta.sub.org Fri, 28 May 1993 00:15:10 MESZ nasim.sta.sub.org Sat, 29 May 1993 01:30:40 MESZ nasim.sta.sub.org Tue, 01 Jun 1993 00:46:06 MESZ nasim.sta.sub.org Thu, 03 Jun 93 10:48:04 MESZ aie.wu-wien.ac.at Fri, 4 Jun 93 10:56:33 MESZ exaib.wu-wien.ac.at Fri, 4 Jun 93 11:06:41 MESZ exaib.wu-wien.ac.at MEST Middle European Standard Time Tue, 25 May 93 12:45:47 MEST xivic.bo.open.de Tue, 25 May 93 14:20:53 MEST xivic.bo.open.de Tue, 25 May 93 14:48:22 MEST xivic.bo.open.de Wed, 26 May 93 23:22:22 MEST joker.wes.open.de Sat, 29 May 1993 18:22:55 MEST netmbx.netmbx.de Sat, 29 May 1993 18:21:07 MEST netmbx.netmbx.de Sun, 30 May 1993 12:57:21 MEST netmbx.netmbx.de Tue, 1 Jun 1993 21:51:09 MEST netmbx.netmbx.de MEZ Middle European Zone (used primarily in Germany) Mon, 10 May 93 20:47:50 MEZ rhrz.uni-bonn.de Wed, 26 May 93 12:59:57 MEZ vm.univie.ac.at ... Sun, 06 Jun 1993 14:32:28 MEZ sartar.toppoint.de Sun, 06 Jun 1993 18:37:50 MEZ sartar.toppoint.de UT Universal Time (used only by one system) 29 May 1993 21:14 UT kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov 31 May 1993 15:40 UT kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov ... 3 Jun 1993 21:36 UT kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov 4 Jun 1993 00:20 UT kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov WET+0100 Western European Time+0100 8 Apr 93 15:00:02 WET+0100 ittpub.nl 1 Jun 93 19:26:08 WET+0100 ittpub.nl 2 Jun 93 16:17:13 WET+0100 ittpub.nl 2 Jun 93 20:24:36 WET+0100 ittpub.nl 4 Jun 93 13:32:33 WET+0100 ittpub.nl 4 Jun 93 13:39:50 WET+0100 ittpub.nl 4 Jun 93 13:47:53 WET+0100 ittpub.nl 4 Jun 93 14:08:22 WET+0100 ittpub.nl Time zone abbreviations that are guesswork are: ARG Argentina? Tue, 25 May 93 12:46:21 ARG satlink.net Thu, 27 May 93 07:36:01 ARG satlink.net BSC ? Tue, 25 May 1993 10:51:05 BSC FINHUTC.HUT.FI Tue, 1 Jun 1993 11:57:00 BSC brfapesp.bitnet DST Daylight Saving Time? Thu, 27 May 93 11:00:24 DST cmrra.ca Thu, 27 May 93 23:31:02 DST cmrra.ca Fri, 28 May 93 17:26:14 DST cmrra.ca Sat, 29 May 93 16:48:42 DST cmrra.ca Sat, 29 May 93 16:54:30 DST cmrra.ca Sun, 30 May 93 14:38:30 DST cmrra.ca EDZ ? Mon, 31 May 93 18:14:42 EDZ wship.nullnet.fi Fri, 04 Jun 93 20:41:41 EDZ swob.nullnet.fi Fri, 04 Jun 93 20:53:45 EDZ swob.nullnet.fi EMT ? 28 Apr 1993 12:08:23 EMT alf.uib.no 29 Apr 1993 11:15:44 EMT alf.uib.no 29 Apr 1993 11:17:15 EMT alf.uib.no 28 May 1993 17:56:54 EMT alf.uib.no 1 Jun 1993 19:43:42 EMT alf.uib.no 3 Jun 1993 18:09:42 EMT alf.uib.no MEWT ? 12 May 93 07:41:03 MEWT mble.philips.be LCL LoCaL time? Tue, 1 Jun 1993 09:18:43 LCL kona.cc.mcgill.ca Wed, 2 Jun 1993 07:48:00 LCL mp.cs.niu.edu Wed, 2 Jun 1993 13:44:00 LCL mp.cs.niu.edu Thu, 3 Jun 1993 09:33:00 LCL oas2-tic.safb.af.mil Thu, 3 Jun 1993 08:25:39 LCL grouse.umesve.maine.edu Fri, 4 Jun 1993 20:09:05 LCL CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU Fri, 4 Jun 1993 20:19:59 LCL CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU NDT ? Tue, 25 May 1993 15:39:29 NDT UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU SGP ? Mon, 31 May 93 15:43:36 SGP uwm.edu Fri, 4 Jun 93 10:20:26 SGP uwm.edu TUR Turkey? Wednesday, 5 May 1993 23:23:11 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Wednesday, 26 May 1993 09:03:58 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Wednesday, 26 May 1993 09:05:39 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Wednesday, 26 May 1993 09:06:26 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Wednesday, 26 May 1993 20:47:38 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Thursday, 27 May 1993 10:15:14 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Thursday, 27 May 1993 12:28:59 TUR TREARN.BITNET Thursday, 27 May 1993 13:20:19 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Thursday, 27 May 1993 15:20:12 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Friday, 28 May 1993 11:01:42 TUR TREARN.BITNET Friday, 28 May 1993 12:53:52 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Sunday, 30 May 1993 12:15:24 TUR TREARN.BITNET Saturday, 29 May 1993 12:46:01 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Monday, 31 May 1993 21:44:49 TUR TRMETU.BITNET Saturday, 5 Jun 1993 18:30:45 TUR TREARN.BITNET Sunday, 6 Jun 1993 13:14:56 TUR TREARN.BITNET TZONE ? Mon, 31 May 1993 05:01:19 TZONE VAXF.COLORADO.EDU Wed, 2 Jun 1993 19:59:49 TZONE carson.u.washington.edu Fri, 4 Jun 1993 09:21:33 TZONE sunburn.uwaterloo.ca XDT ? Tue, 25 May 1993 10:20:55 XDT sfanet.nrl.navy.mil The results make me think there's little prospect of discovering useful time zone information (in particular, time transitions that don't already show up in tzdata93c.tar.Z) from running through news articles; someone with an account on a site that does extensive archiving of news might prove me wrong. --ado

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Re: time zone survey
by guy＠auspex.com June 11, 1993

June 11, 1993

> (Yes, in SysV the file has to be changed every > year again. And SGI shows no inclination to change.) Actually, I think SVR4 includes the Olson code, although I don't think all SVR4.0 systems supply the Olson files. However, I infer from one of Eric Raymond's lists of SVR4 bugs that SVR4.2 does supply the Olson files *and* uses Olson-style timezone specifications (":" followed by the time zone file name) by default. (The bug was that SVR4.0 binaries allegedly don't work with SVR4.2 time zone names, an example of which was given as "US/Eastern" or something such as that; that seems a *tad* bizarre, as if SVR4.0 has the Olson code, SVR4.0 statically-linked binaries should be able to handle Olson-style names, and SVR4.0 dynamically-linked binaries should use SVR4.2 shared libraries and should thus also be able to handle them. Perhaps the bug was that SVR3.x binaries don't handle Olson-style names.) SVR4 uses "/etc/TIMEZONE", but you can set TZ to ":MET" and you shouldn't have to change it every year. (Also, SVR4 should also support POSIX-style TZ settings, which should allow you to put in a value that doesn't require periodic updates *if* your locale's DST rules are sufficiently "regular" that they can be encoded in the TZ setting. I don't know which SVR3.x systems, if any, supported that.) If, as, and when IRIX goes to an SVR4 base, they should probably pick up the Olson code with it.

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Re: time zone survey
by Dik.Winter＠cwi.nl June 11, 1993

June 11, 1993

> Attached are results from a casual time zone survey. An interesting survey. > I tossed out data with unzoned time stamps, data without a recognizable > domained system name in the Message-ID, and data from ".com" sites. Why did you toss out data from ".com" sites? > 1 +0530 > 1 Jun 93 15:30:55 +0530 imtech.ernet.in This might be a valid one. It is apparently from India which lives around +5 and +6. > 1 +0611 > Wed, 02 Jun 93 16:08:33 +0611 trashcan.hacktic.nl This one is definitely invalid. Most probably a PC hooked up to hacktic (a public access system in the Netherlands). Probably the owner did set it up wrong. > 1 +0730 > 6 Jun 1993 08:25:56 +0730 news.Colorado.EDU Ha! If even Colorado.Edu cannot get it correct! ;-). > MESZ Middle European Standard Zone Probably "Mittel Europ"aische Standard Zeit". > MEZ Middle European Zone (used primarily in Germany) "Mittel Europ"aische Zeit". And yes, primarily german speaking countries. > BSC ? > Tue, 25 May 1993 10:51:05 BSC FINHUTC.HUT.FI > Tue, 1 Jun 1993 11:57:00 BSC brfapesp.bitnet These two are definitely not in the same timezone. One is in Finland, one in Brazil. > TUR Turkey? Probably yes. All sites are in Turkey. > The results make me think there's little prospect of discovering useful > time zone information (in particular, time transitions that don't already > show up in tzdata93c.tar.Z) from running through news articles; someone > with an account on a site that does extensive archiving of news might prove > me wrong. I think there is no prospect at all. And it will grow worse. In the case of the "hacktic.nl" machine we see that we have a single machine that is configured wrong. I think more of this kind of machines will emerge. They do not care what time the system runs on, as long as it is internally consistent (and even that is not needed at all times). Time transitions especially will be a problem, and it will continue to be a problem. At our institute during the transition to DST all Suns (which use your package) switched on time, but all SGI's (using SysV's method) did not. The system administrator simply had forgotten to update the file that contained timezone information (/etc/TIMEZONE) and it took a few days before somebody noticed. (Yes, in SysV the file has to be changed every year again. And SGI shows no inclination to change.) So I think nobody will prove you wrong.

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Re: "32 time zones"
by Amos Shapir June 9, 1993

June 9, 1993

> I don't know about any zones with > three-quarter hour offsets, but would like to know what they are. >From the same usno1989 file (which is outdated and contains errors, but seems to be the most comprehensive source we have): NEPAL 5H45M AHEAD OF UTC NEW ZEALAND 12H45M AHEAD OF UTC CHATHAM ISLAND In the Rand-McNally atlas there are a few other Pacific islands with 40 mins offsets, all of which appear as full or half-hour zones in the file; it also lists Nepal at GMT+5:40 and Liberia as -0:44 (yes, forty four) -- makes sense since Monrovia is at exactly 11 degrees west, but probably outdated too. Amos Shapir Net: amos(a)cs.huji.ac.il Paper: The Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Dept. of Comp. Science. Givat-Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel Tel: +972 2 585706 GEO: 35 11 46 E / 31 46 21 N

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"32 time zones"
by ado June 8, 1993

June 8, 1993

Our society has created a fictional time system of 32 time zones (24 one-hour offsets and several more half-hour and three-quarter hour offsets). --Tognazzini, Bruce (tog(a)eng.sun.com) "Tog on Interface: The Myth of Precision", Sun World, volume 6, number 7 (June, 1993), page 100. A grep in /usr/lib/zoneinfo/* on a SunOS 4.1.1 system failed to show up eight oddball time zones (see attached). Does anyone know of the origin for the "32" time zones? --ado

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