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Israel Daylight Time
by Chris Carrier March 6, 1997

March 6, 1997

Ephraim Silverberg > INTERNET:ephraim@cs.huji.ac.il wrote: >Yesterday, the Knesset (Israeli parliament) passed a law changing the >daylight savings changeover times for 1997 (a mere ten days from when the >old times were to take effect). >An article from the English-language Jerusalem Post of late January explains >the rational for the change and can be found in: > ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/users/ephraim/tz/timezone97.ps.gz >Please note that the starting time mentioned in the English-language article >is NOT the time that was finally decided upon by the Knesset. Could you please post the article here? Not all of us have Web access, sadly. >According to the Office of the Secretary General of the Ministry of >Interior, there is NO set rule for Daylight-Savings/Standard time changes. >Each year they decide anew what havoc to wreak on the country. However, >there is a "supposed" set of rules which is subject to change depending >on the party the Minister of Interior, the size of the coalition >government, the phase of the moon and the direction of the wind... Sounds like Indiana in the good old days before the Uniform Time Act where each county had its own time, each city within that county could secede from that, and where a 35-mile stretch of road had seven different sets of rules. I heard an apocrphyal story from Indiana at that time that a city council met on a Saturday evening and decided to cancel DST which was to go into effect at 2 a.m. that night (Sunday morning). The police and fire departments went around all over town late that evening and early next morning broadcasting the change on their bullhorns. Although the 1999-2009 dates do bounce around the Gregorian calendar quite a bit, in the Jewish calendar they are quite consistent: DST begins on the fourth Sunday in Nisan and ends on the first Sunday after Elul 20. (Ran the dates through a program of mine that takes Civil dates and translates them into a number of other calendars, including the Jewish).

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tzdata1997c.tar.gz
by ado March 4, 1997

March 4, 1997

The file http://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata1997c.tar.gz is now available; it incorporates the recently circulated changes in Israel. I'm at work on the "zic -s" challenge. The cleanest way to deal with it seems to be to ignore the "-s" flag when running through the rules and zones, then eliminating "early" transition times when writing out the zone file; doing this provides a way of figuring out what time type should be in effect at the earliest instant to be represented in the file. Substantial regression work will be needed, so stay tuned. --ado

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Changes in Israel's 1997 Daylight Savings Rules (CORRECTION!)
by Ephraim Silverberg March 4, 1997

March 4, 1997

> An article from the English-language Jerusalem Post of late January explains > the rational for the change and can be found in: > > ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/users/ephraim/tz/timezone97.ps.gz > > Please note that the starting time mentioned in the English-language article > is NOT the time that was finally decided upon by the Knesset. The ZIC file I included in my previous message contained the proposed times (and comments) NOT the real times. Attached is the true ZIC file. 10**6 apologies. ___________________________________________________________________________ Ephraim Silverberg, CS System Group, Phone number: 972-2-6585521 Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Fax number: 972-2-6585439 WWW: http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~ephraim E-mail: ephraim(a)cs.huji.ac.il --------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Zone Information Compiler (ZIC) File for the State of Israel (1989-2009) # According to the Office of the Secretary General of the Ministry of # Interior, there is NO set rule for Daylight-Savings/Standard time changes. # Each year they decide anew what havoc to wreak on the country. However, # there is a "supposed" set of rules which is subject to change depending # on the party the Minister of Interior, the size of the coalition # government, the phase of the moon and the direction of the wind. Hence, # changes may need to be made on a semi-annual basis. One thing is entrenched # in law, however: that there must be at least 150 days of daylight savings # time annually. Ever since 1993, the change to daylight savings time is # on a Thursday night from midnight IST to 1 a.m IDT. The change back to # standard time is on a Saturday night from midnight daylight savings time # to 11 p.m. standard time. 1996 is an exception to this rule where the # change back to standard time took place on Sunday night instead of Saturday # night to avoid conflicts with the Jewish New Year. # 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 3 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1990 only - Mar 25 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1990 only - Aug 26 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1991 only - Mar 24 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1991 only - Sep 1 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1992 only - Mar 29 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1992 only - Sep 6 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1993 only - Apr 2 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1993 only - Sep 5 0:00 0:00 S # The dates for 1994-1995 were obtained from Office of the Spokeswoman for the # Ministry of Interior, Jerusalem, Israel. The spokeswoman can be reached by # calling her office directly at 972-2-6701447 or 972-2-6701448. # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule Zion 1994 only - Apr 1 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1994 only - Aug 28 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1995 only - Mar 31 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1995 only - Sep 3 0:00 0:00 S # The dates for 1996 were determined by the Minister of Interior of the # time, Mr. Haim Ramon. The official announcement regarding 1996-1998 # (with the dates for 1997 no longer being relevant) can be viewed at: # # ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/pub/tz/announcements/1996-1998.ramon.ps.gz # # The dates for 1997 were altered by his successor, Rabbi Eli Suissa. # No changes have been made regarding 1998 as of yet. # # The official announcement for the year 1997 can be viewed at: # # ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/pub/tz/announcements/1997.ps.gz # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule Zion 1996 only - Mar 15 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1996 only - Sep 16 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1997 only - Mar 21 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1997 only - Sep 14 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1998 only - Mar 20 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1998 only - Oct 18 0:00 0:00 S # These rules are probably wrong, but they are close approximations (usually # within a few weeks): # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule Zion 1999 only - Apr 11 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1999 only - Sep 5 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2000 only - Apr 30 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2000 only - Sep 24 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2001 only - Apr 15 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2001 only - Sep 9 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2002 only - Apr 7 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2002 only - Sep 1 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2003 only - Apr 27 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2003 only - Sep 21 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2004 only - Apr 18 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2004 only - Sep 12 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2005 only - May 1 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2005 only - Sep 25 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2006 only - Apr 23 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2006 only - Sep 17 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2007 only - Apr 15 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2007 only - Sep 9 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2008 only - Apr 27 0:00 1:00 D 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 # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Israel 2:00 Zion I%sT

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Changes in Israel's 1997 Daylight Savings Rules
by Ephraim Silverberg March 4, 1997

March 4, 1997

Yesterday, the Knesset (Israeli parliament) passed a law changing the daylight savings changeover times for 1997 (a mere ten days from when the old times were to take effect). Attached is the new Zic file for Israel with the corrected 1997 times. For now, the times for 1998 remain the same and there are no official times for 1999 and on. Please note that I have altered some of the comments as well. The official announcement (in Hebrew) is in the gzipped postscript file: ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/pub/tz/announcements/1997.ps.gz An article from the English-language Jerusalem Post of late January explains the rational for the change and can be found in: ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/users/ephraim/tz/timezone97.ps.gz Please note that the starting time mentioned in the English-language article is NOT the time that was finally decided upon by the Knesset. ___________________________________________________________________________ Ephraim Silverberg, CS System Group, Phone number: 972-2-6585521 Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Fax number: 972-2-6585439 WWW: http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~ephraim E-mail: ephraim(a)cs.huji.ac.il --------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Zone Information Compiler (ZIC) File for the State of Israel (1989-2009) # According to the Office of the Secretary General of the Ministry of # Interior, there is NO set rule for Daylight-Savings/Standard time changes. # Each year they decide anew what havoc to wreak on the country. However, # there is a "supposed" set of rules which is subject to change depending # on the party the Minister of Interior, the size of the coalition # government, the phase of the moon and the direction of the wind. Hence, # changes may need to be made on a semi-annual basis. One thing is entrenched # in law, however: that there must be at least 150 days of daylight savings # time annually. The change to daylight savings time is from midnight IST # to 1 a.m IDT (day of week varies in different years). The change back to # standard time is on a Saturday night from midnight daylight savings time # to 11 p.m. standard time. 1996 is an exception to this rule where the # change back to standard time took place on Sunday night instead of Saturday # night to avoid conflicts with the Jewish New Year. # 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 3 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1990 only - Mar 25 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1990 only - Aug 26 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1991 only - Mar 24 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1991 only - Sep 1 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1992 only - Mar 29 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1992 only - Sep 6 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1993 only - Apr 2 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1993 only - Sep 5 0:00 0:00 S # The dates for 1994-1995 were obtained from Office of the Spokeswoman for the # Ministry of Interior, Jerusalem, Israel. The spokeswoman can be reached by # calling her office directly at 972-2-6701447 or 972-2-6701448. # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule Zion 1994 only - Apr 1 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1994 only - Aug 28 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1995 only - Mar 31 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1995 only - Sep 3 0:00 0:00 S # The dates for 1996 were determined by the Minister of Interior of the # time, Haim Ramon. The dates for 1997 were altered by his successor, # Rabbi Eli Suissa. No changes have been made regarding 1998 as of yet. # # The official announcement for the years 1997 and 1998 can be viewed at: # # ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/pub/tz/announcements/1997-1998.ps.gz # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule Zion 1996 only - Mar 15 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1996 only - Sep 16 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1997 only - Mar 23 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1997 only - Sep 14 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 1998 only - Mar 20 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1998 only - Oct 18 0:00 0:00 S # These rules are probably wrong, but they are close approximations (usually # within a few weeks): # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule Zion 1999 only - Apr 11 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1999 only - Sep 5 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2000 only - Apr 30 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2000 only - Sep 24 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2001 only - Apr 15 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2001 only - Sep 9 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2002 only - Apr 7 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2002 only - Sep 1 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2003 only - Apr 27 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2003 only - Sep 21 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2004 only - Apr 18 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2004 only - Sep 12 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2005 only - May 1 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2005 only - Sep 25 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2006 only - Apr 23 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2006 only - Sep 17 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2007 only - Apr 15 0:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 2007 only - Sep 9 0:00 0:00 S Rule Zion 2008 only - Apr 27 0:00 1:00 D 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 # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Israel 2:00 Zion I%sT

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zic -s bug fixes for year/time extremes (found by code inspection)
by Paul Eggert March 3, 1997

March 3, 1997

I briefly looked for a fix for the problem that Dave Sparks reported today with zic.c, and decided that this will require more zic expertise than I have. However, I did find a couple of related bugs in zic.c by code inspection. First, there are a couple of places in the code that compare for equality to min_year, but values less than min_year are possible if -s is given, so these should be changed to compare for not greater than min_year. (While we're at it, we might as well make max_year symmetric.) Second, the setboundaries function sets min_year and max_year based on GMT, but these values are meant to be bounds for localtime years, so to be safe one must subtract 1 from the GMT min year and add 1 to the GMT max year. This is particularly important with the -s option, since the GMT min year is 1970 but the localtime min year might be 1969. Here is a proposed patch. This patch doesn't fix Sparks's bug, unfortunately. 1997-03-02 Paul Eggert <eggert(a)twinsun.com> * zic.c (setboundaries): Set min_year to be one less than GMT min_year, and max_year to be one greater than GMT max_year, in case local time and GMT disagree about years at time boundaries. (outzone, tadd): Don't assume that min_time and max_time are bounds on time_t values, since -s makes this assumption false. =================================================================== RCS file: RCS/zic.c,v retrieving revision 1997.2.1.1 retrieving revision 1997.2.1.2 diff -c -r1997.2.1.1 -r1997.2.1.2 *** zic.c 1997/02/28 00:22:22 1997.2.1.1 --- zic.c 1997/03/03 03:58:26 1997.2.1.2 *************** *** 647,654 **** max_time <<= TIME_T_BITS_IN_FILE - 1; --max_time; } ! min_year = TM_YEAR_BASE + gmtime(&min_time)->tm_year; ! max_year = TM_YEAR_BASE + gmtime(&max_time)->tm_year; } static int --- 647,654 ---- max_time <<= TIME_T_BITS_IN_FILE - 1; --max_time; } ! min_year = TM_YEAR_BASE + gmtime(&min_time)->tm_year - 1; ! max_year = TM_YEAR_BASE + gmtime(&max_time)->tm_year + 1; } static int *************** *** 1638,1645 **** if (!rp->r_todisstd) offset = oadd(offset, stdoff); jtime = rp->r_temp; ! if (jtime == min_time || ! jtime == max_time) continue; jtime = tadd(jtime, -offset); if (k < 0 || jtime < ktime) { --- 1638,1645 ---- if (!rp->r_todisstd) offset = oadd(offset, stdoff); jtime = rp->r_temp; ! if (jtime <= min_time || ! jtime >= max_time) continue; jtime = tadd(jtime, -offset); if (k < 0 || jtime < ktime) { *************** *** 1978,1986 **** { register time_t t; ! if (t1 == max_time && t2 > 0) return max_time; ! if (t1 == min_time && t2 < 0) return min_time; t = t1 + t2; if ((t2 > 0 && t <= t1) || (t2 < 0 && t >= t1)) { --- 1978,1986 ---- { register time_t t; ! if (t1 >= max_time && t2 > 0) return max_time; ! if (t1 <= min_time && t2 < 0) return min_time; t = t1 + t2; if ((t2 > 0 && t <= t1) || (t2 < 0 && t >= t1)) {

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problem withzic 7.81 (1997a)
by Dave Sparks March 2, 1997

March 2, 1997

I recently downloaded tz{code,data}1997a.tar.gz in order to update our timezone database. Because we will not be using any dates earlier than 1970 I used zic -s to save space. All the timezone information was compiled, but when I tried to install the data into our database four timezones failed the sanity checks. I found that the compiled files for these timezones were each 44 bytes long and contained only zeros. The zones were: Australia/Darwin Africa/Accra Africa/Freetown Africa/Johannesburg (none of which have transitions after 1970). I looked at zic.c and made the following changes: 207% diff zic.c zic.OLD.c 3c3 < static char elsieid[] = "@(#)zic.c 7.81 +DaveS"; --- > static char elsieid[] = "@(#)zic.c 7.81"; 1572a1573 > usestart = i > 0 && (zp - 1)->z_untiltime > min_time; 1576d1576 < usestart = (timecnt == 0 && !useuntil) || (i > 0 && ((zp - 1)->z_untiltime > min_time)); which was partially successful (the Australian timezone was handled, but the African timezones needed modifications which wouldn't have been necessary if the fix had been correct: 208% diff africa africa.OLD 325,326c325 < 0:00 Ghana %s 1942 < 0:00 - WAT --- > 0:00 Ghana %s 561,562c560 < 0:00 SL WA%sT 1962 < 0:00 - WAT --- > 0:00 SL WA%sT 581,582c579 < 2:00 SA SA%sT 1944 < 2:00 - SAT --- > 2:00 SA SA%sT ). After looking more carefully at the timezone data, I realised that what the troublesome timezones had in common wasn't just that there were no transitions after 1970, but also that the last transition was by Rule. Since by then I had compiled data which we could use, I didn't look at zic.c again to try to work out a better fix. Incidentally, the assumption that the first Standard Time offset should be used for times before the first transition doesn't work well for Southern Hemisphere timezones: in many cases Summer Time will be in effect at the earliest time handled. (In case you were wondering why we need to import the timezone data into our own database: the application in question has to handle multiple timezones and is nor written in C or C++.) -- Dave Sparks, Staffordshire, England (posted from my private mailbox to avoid my employer being legally liable, since in English law a disclaimer would be ineffective.)

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Re: ISO 8601 revision
by kuhn＠cs.purdue.edu March 1, 1997

March 1, 1997

Keld J|rn Simonsen wrote on 1997-03-01 22:50 UTC: [How do we get in contact with the ISO 8601 working group?] > I can try to ask the Danish Standards people. Great! > Have you got any suggestions for the "ugly T"? [Anyone interested in this discussion without a copy of ISO 8601, please download and print first <ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/pub/doc/ISO/ISO8601.ps.Z> for reference.] I think, a space is the nicest solution as in 1997-03-01 22:50 and it should definitely be explicitely allowed. The current standard gave the author of <http://www.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-newman-datetime-01.txt> the impression that the "ugly T" is the only comforming way of writing down both date and time, which is the only reason why the new proposed Internet standard date and time format (an ISO 8601 profile) has the "T". Only for applications, where a space is inconvenient (e.g, Unix command line options, where fields are separated by space), the hyphen as used in the corresponding ANSI standard and as shown in the "Chicago Manual of Style" is also quite nice: 1997-02-28-22:50 I do not see, where this overloading of the hyphen would cause problems with the requirement, that a parser must be able to distinguish all formats. If it causes problems with unambiguous parsability, then I wouldn't mind dropping some of the less useful notations from the ensemble. I also find the notation "--MM-DD" awfull for cases where I do not specify the year as it follows from context. It would be much nicer if notations like "-MM-DD" and "-DD" would be part of the collection, as this would allow to use these notations in sentences like "The conference will take place from 1997-08-28 to -31, and the tutorial sessions will run from -08-28 to -09-05." Instead these patterns are currently used for "-YY" and "-YY-MM". I think, using the leading hyphen to indicate the missing century digits was a bad idea. Please note that although ISO 8601 was intended as a standard for data respresentation, it is today quoted in standards for business letter typographical conventions (e.g., DIN 5008-1996). ISO 8601 currently lists numerous incomplete formats which I strongly doubt will ever be used anywhere (e.g., "---DD"). They are in applications like Unix cron, where you want to specify periodic events, much better represented by a more generic extended wildcard notation that allows to specify events like the last Sunday of every month, something ISO 8601 currently does not yet provide. Useful new notations might be 1997-100.5 (noon of the 100th day of 1997) 1997-02-3-7 (the third sunday of February 1997, especially useful with unspecified year or year/month as in *-3-7 or *-02-3-7) These are just a few first ideas for improvement. Once we get in contact with the working group and hear about their plans, we can start working on a detailed proposal. Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Science grad student, Purdue University, Indiana, USA -- email: kuhn(a)cs.purdue.edu

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tzcode1997b.tar.gz and tzdata1997b.tar.gz
by ado Feb. 27, 1997

Feb. 27, 1997

The files ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzcode1997b.tar.gz and ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata1997b.tar.gz are now available. The data file incorporates the 1997 leap second; the code file incorporates your correspondent's take on the zic/multiprocessor/directory-creation situation. --ado

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Re: 8th EU Directive, French time
by peter＠memex.co.uk Feb. 27, 1997

Feb. 27, 1997

> Has the 8th EU Summer Time Directive come out? (starting in 1998) Not that I know of. The Transport Council (the group of national transport ministers who decide this) aren't due to meet for the first time this year until 11 March so I can't see it happening before then. I have just checked with my contact at the local EC Information Office and she hasn't heard anything either. They did apparently have an informal meeting on 31 Jan but I can't see anything in the midday press releases (at http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/spp/me/midday.html, with the relevent past ones at me970131.html, me970203.html, etc. (these people have a year 2000 problem looming :-) ). > Also, is France going to move from GMT+1 to GMT+2 this spring, and are they > still discussing remaining on the same time all year? (Perhaps permanent rule > change might be deferred until the end of the 7th Directive in October 1997.) I haven't seen any reports about this for months. I think it very unlikely that they will not follow the existing 7th directive. Any change, if it comes at all, is likely to be in 1998. > Has a date been set for the British General Election? No, but the options are closing in all the time. John Major has all but said it will be 1 May. I think the latest date is 5 May, but elections are always on a Thursday here so that is out. The other hot tip was 20 March but I think it is now too late to dissolve Parliament and meet that date. There is a by-election at Wirral South today, the result of which will no doubt confuse things even more. A bit of bonus news I saw today: there will be a leap second on 30 June 1997. See ftp://hpvlbi.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/bulletinc.13 or http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leap.html. Peter Ilieve peter(a)aldie.co.uk

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8th EU Directive, French time
by Chris Carrier Feb. 27, 1997

Feb. 27, 1997

Some questions for our UK/European correspondents: Has the 8th EU Summer Time Directive come out? (starting in 1998) Also, is France going to move from GMT+1 to GMT+2 this spring, and are they still discussing remaining on the same time all year? (Perhaps permanent rule change might be deferred until the end of the 7th Directive in October 1997.) Has a date been set for the British General Election? Thank you. Chris Carrier

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Interest in Timezone Information at JPL
by Dave Skinner Feb. 26, 1997

Feb. 26, 1997

I guess I should be added to at least the tz-requests mailing list and possibly the tz mailing list as well if it does NOT include the former email addresses by default. I represent the only person at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has both an abiding interest in these matters as well as an immediate and on-going need for this information. For the record, I am coding a web-based capability to look up the latitude and longitude of any any geographic name that is being maintained in the http://www.nima.mil/gns/html/index.html web site, which is the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) GEOnet Names Server for non-US geographic names, and at the http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer web site of the US Census Bureau, which is the name server for US geographic names. Once, I have the laititude and longitude I am currently planning to find out which of your timezones is the timezone associated with either the country or territory involved or, if the country in question has multiple timezones, to ascertain which of these timezones is the correct one based on the associated latitude and longitude. Finally, I plan to maintain and use your timezone information to find the best estimate of time-of-day at that location for a specified julian date. I say "best estimate" because many of our lookups will necessarily be for future events, and the timezone boundaries, their associated offsets from GMT, and especially their associated daylight savings time rules are obviously only as good as we know them today. The only problem that remains to be solved is the polygon information that is currently burried in the http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/95fact/802389h.gif file. To automatically lookup which timezone is associated with a given latitude and longitude requires having those polygons. So, I plan to see if the CIA Publications types would be willing to post such a file. If not, I may be forced to beat on the gif file. Anyway, it is really great to see that such a thorough effort to identify and maintain timezone information is occurring. Dave Skinner dave(a)kirdu.jpl.nasa.gov

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"tzcode.tar.gz" and "tzdata.tar.gz" as links?
by guy＠netapp.com Feb. 11, 1997

Feb. 11, 1997

I sometimes suggest, in postings and mail messages, that people should pick up the Olson code and database; unfortunately, I have to put it as, e.g.: The [Arthur] Olson code, available, to those with FTP access, from "elsie.nci.nih.gov", in "pub/tzcode1997a.tar.gz" (unless, by the time you see this posting, Arthur's put out another version, in which case it'll be "1997b" or something such as that), ... (to quote a recent "comp.unix.solaris" posting). "libpcap" and "tcpdump", for example, handle this by having "libpcap.tar.Z" being a symlink to the current version of the "libpcap" library, and having "tcpdump.tar.Z" being a symlink to the current version of "tcpdump"; should something similar be done for the "tzcode" and "tzdata" "tar.gz" files?

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your timezone program.
by Igor Grobman Feb. 5, 1997

Feb. 5, 1997

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi, I am one of the developers of Debian Linux, a popular free Linux distribution. I was asked to fix bugs in this program that were filed by our users in the bug tracking system. The most serious bug is "the missing timezones". Apparently, your program included some timezones in an earlier version (I would guess around 1994) that were later dropped. The zones that users most ask about is something like US/Eastern, /US/Central, /US/Western, and similar things for other countries. I understand you probably don't want to release an official version with these zones defined, but what would be the best way for me to do it in order to fix it in the distribution? I looked at the source, and saw that you already use "Link" to link some of the obsolete zones. Would it be wise to link those old zones to the corresponding new timezone? Thanks. __ Proudly running Debian Linux! Linux vs. Windows is a no-Win situation.... Igor Grobman igor(a)vaca.net -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQBVAwUBMvkDmf6MRr9c8VylAQFtewIAnXYYWwxzoC9erTAgnUJrldkiNQKS//63 cwtOUOY1y1XMAPduspYjmezHMGq47UW1bRgowr+nl9IWzPHqfhU3gA== =iHGm -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: zic on multi-processor systems
by Ulrich Drepper Feb. 3, 1997

Feb. 3, 1997

Ken Pizzini <ken(a)halcyon.com> writes: > if (!itsdir(name)) { > /* > ** It doesn't seem to exist, so we try to create it. > + ** Double check the return. Someone may be one > + ** step ahead of us. > */ > if (mkdir(name, 0755) != 0) { > + int sverr = errno; > + if (!itsdir(name)) { > const char *e = strerror(errno); You probably mean `sverr' here --------------------------^^^^^ BTW: I would change the if line to if (errno == EEXIST && !itsdir(name)) I've sent the patch as I got it and thought about it only later. Thanks, -- Uli ---------------. drepper(a)cygnus.com ,-. Rubensstrasse 5 Ulrich Drepper \ ,-------------------' \ 76149 Karlsruhe/Germany Cygnus Solutions `--' drepper(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu `------------------------

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zic on multi-processor systems
by Ulrich Drepper Feb. 2, 1997

Feb. 2, 1997

Hi, the following patch will improve the usability of zic in environments with multiple processors (or make running several processes). We are in this situation in GNU libc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ diff -u gnu/glibc/time/zic.c:1.1.1.4 gnu/glibc/time/zic.c:1.2 --- gnu/glibc/time/zic.c:1.1.1.4 Wed Jan 22 06:58:14 1997 +++ gnu/glibc/time/zic.c Sun Feb 2 12:02:29 1997 @@ -2126,8 +2126,11 @@ if (!itsdir(name)) { /* ** It doesn't seem to exist, so we try to create it. + ** Double check the return. Someone may be one + ** step ahead of us. */ - if (mkdir(name, 0755) != 0) { + if (mkdir(name, 0755) != 0 && !itsdir(name)) + { const char *e = strerror(errno); (void) fprintf(stderr, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks, -- Uli ---------------. drepper(a)cygnus.com ,-. Rubensstrasse 5 Ulrich Drepper \ ,-------------------' \ 76149 Karlsruhe/Germany Cygnus Solutions `--' drepper(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu `------------------------

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Re: draft-newman-datetime-01.txt
by Chris Newman Jan. 31, 1997

Jan. 31, 1997

I have a proposal for dealing with the "T" problem: How about at the end of section 5.2, I mention that it may be desirable to substitute a " " for the "T" when displaying times to users (of course the "T" would still be required for Internet protocol interchange). Does this sound like a reasonable compromise?

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I-D ACTION:draft-newman-datetime-01.txt (fwd)
by Chris Newman Jan. 30, 1997

Jan. 30, 1997

Here's a new version of the time format document. The major change is adding a new format to represent future dates by specifying timezone name. Something like this seems to be needed by the IETF calendaring/scheduling working group to deal with future events and recurring events scheduled in local timezones. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 09:40:43 -0500 From: Internet-Drafts(a)ietf.org To: IETF-Announce: ; Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-newman-datetime-01.txt A Revised Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories. Title : Date and Time on the Internet Author(s) : C. Newman Filename : draft-newman-datetime-01.txt Pages : 23 Date : 01/27/1997 Date and time formats cause a lot of confusion and interoperability problems on the Internet. This document will address many of the problems encountered and make recommendations to improve consistancy and interoperability when representing and using date and time in Internet protocols. Internet-Drafts are available by anonymous FTP. Login with the username "anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address. After logging in, type "cd internet-drafts" and then "get draft-newman-datetime-01.txt". A URL for the Internet-Draft is: ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-newman-datetime-01.txt Internet-Drafts directories are located at: o Africa: ftp.is.co.za o Europe: ftp.nordu.net ftp.nis.garr.it o Pacific Rim: munnari.oz.au o US East Coast: ds.internic.net o US West Coast: ftp.isi.edu Internet-Drafts are also available by mail. Send a message to: mailserv(a)ds.internic.net. In the body type: "FILE /internet-drafts/draft-newman-datetime-01.txt". NOTE: The mail server at ds.internic.net can return the document in MIME-encoded form by using the "mpack" utility. To use this feature, insert the command "ENCODING mime" before the "FILE" command. To decode the response(s), you will need "munpack" or a MIME-compliant mail reader. Different MIME-compliant mail readers exhibit different behavior, especially when dealing with "multipart" MIME messages (i.e., documents which have been split up into multiple messages), so check your local documentation on how to manipulate these messages. Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version of the Internet-Draft.

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Alternative to A/B notation
by Chris Carrier Jan. 30, 1997

Jan. 30, 1997

Paul Eggert > INTERNET:eggert@twinsun.com wrote: >I agree with most of Markus Kuhn's comments and have the following >further comments and suggestions. >* I agree with Markus that ambiguous local times are a problem, but >the proposed A/B notation is not an adequate solution. That notation >works in the European context, where the rules are simple and uniform, >but it won't work well in general and it's painful to implement reliably. (major snip dealing with problems with A/B notation) >Here's a counterproposal that avoids the above problems. Instead of >having a special A/B notation for ambiguous local times, simply >have section 6.7 require the UTC offset. That is, instead of > 1996-10-27T02:30:00A Europe/Paris [+02:00] > 1996-10-27T02:30:00B Europe/Paris [+01:00] >(where the bracketed items are optional), require the UTC offset instead: > 1996-10-27T02:30:00 Europe/Paris +02:00 > 1996-10-27T02:30:00 Europe/Paris +01:00 >This counterproposal simplifies the notation and removes options, >which is a stated goal of the draft. I completely agree with Paul Eggert's suggestion. >* In practice the choice of time zone rule names may be controversial. >To encourage standardization and head off as much controversy as possible, >I'd like to echo Markus's suggestion to add (to the draft's section 6.3) >as much as possible from the advice to submitters of new time zone >rule names, taken from the `africa' file of the ><URL:ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/> registry. My advice here would be to avoid using time zone names/acronyms, period. After all EST means either -05:00, +10:00 or +11:00 depending on nationality and time of year. If, however, time zone acronyms and names have to be used, I would urge 'daylight time' instead of 'summer time' as both standard and summer begin with the same letter, creating further confusion; in Australia, EST can be either +10:00 or +11:00 as mentioned above. Chris Carrier

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Indiana time zoning
by Chris Carrier Jan. 30, 1997

Jan. 30, 1997

samrein(a)mainlink.net wrote on the Subj: Indiana Daylight Savings Time >I was just told today that Indiana only has 4 counties that change time >twice a year. Can you tell me which 4 and why? My latest information has 11 counties in Indiana; 6 in the NW part of the state and 5 in the SW; on CST in winter and CDT in summer. The rest of the state keeps EST all year. The reason for the counties in the NW being on CT all year is because they are part of suburban/exurban Chicago and prefer being on Chicago time. The counties in the SW have similar economic ties to Central Time areas in neighboring states and prefer being on Central Time for that reason. The history of Indiana time zoning is more than a little interesting, and I have a fascinating and ahem, rather personal story about it that I will send anyone who is interested. In 1883, when standard time was promulgated by the railroads, Indiana went on CST without much complaint. Indiana observed CDT during the summer-time periods of 1918-19 and all year under the name Central War Time during the American World War II year-round summer-time period of 1942-02-09 to 1945-09-30. It was here that things began to get interesting. At the end of War Time, half of Indiana decided it liked being on CDT or EST all year and the other half didn't. Therefore, from 1946 onwards, you have the phenomenon of counties deciding what time they wished to be on, cities within those counties deciding they didn't like the county decision and adopting their own time, and even some neighborhoods split with one side of town adopting DST and the other not, or a town being on one time and its post office on another, ad nauseum. Shanks has tracked down 255 separate rules for Indiana time zoning on the postwar period, and I'm quite sure even he missed a lot of the little rules. Aggravating this after 1954 is indeterminacy as to whether the summer-time period should end on the last Sunday in September or October (September was near universal 1921-41 and 1946-54, and should still be, IMHO). In the early 1960s there was more confusion as the summer-time period began in most jurisdictions on the last Sunday in April, but in a few was delayed until late May, usually a Sunday preceding or following or the day of US Memorial Day (at that time, May 30 in all years; and in many of these jurisdictions DST ended on either the day of, the day before or the day after US Labor Day; the 1st Monday in September). It remember reading in a magazine printed in the mid-1960s that there was a 35 mile stretch of road in Indiana where the clocks changed 7 times. The Eastern/Central boundary crept west during this period, and was officially moved to cover half of Indiana in 1961, and most of it, excepting the counties that are still on Central, on the last Sunday in April 1970. The Uniform Time Act of 1967 required Indiana to clean its time act up. The Indiana Legislature's response to this was to pass a law requiring one clock in each county courthouse to be set to and be labeled 'official time' and allowed localities to go on as before. The 1972 amendment to the Uniform Time Act allowed states such as Indiana in split time zones to except the zone on the later time from DST. As soon as it was passed the Eastern Zone area of Indiana so exempted itself. As such it remained on EST during the expanded summer time periods of 1974-5. Even today, there is still some un-official time in Indiana, in the counties near the Ohio border, which are officially on EST all year, but some informally use EDT in the summer time period while using EST as the time recorded on official documents such as birth records, timestamping of deeds, etc... Personally they should have stayed in the Central Zone where they astronomically belong. Ohio should have been the scene for this mess (but Ohio has some interesting time tales of its own). Chris Carrier

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Re: Inverse for gmtime() ??
by ncm＠cantrip.org Jan. 22, 1997

Jan. 22, 1997

Chris Newman <Chris.Newman(a)innosoft.com>: > On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Markus G. Kuhn wrote: > > I just wanted to start writing a ISO 8601 subset -> time_t conversion > > routine, but to my great disappointment I discovered that ISO C does > > not seem to allow portable conversion of a broken-down time into time_t. > > You can do a binary search of the time_t space using the gmtime() > function. This does require the assumption that time_t is an integral > type, but works well. There is no reason to assume that time_t is integral, and good reasons to assume it often is not, and more often in the future than at present. The restricted range of 32-bit time_t values is a problem in common applications, and until 64-bit machines are universal the easiest way to sidestep the problem is "typedef double time_t;". In any case, since time is a continuous quantity a floating-point representation makes perfect sense, and ANSI (aware of this) permits it. Nathan Myers ncm(a)cantrip.org

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Inverse for gmtime() ??
by kuhn＠cs.purdue.edu Jan. 21, 1997

Jan. 21, 1997

I just wanted to start writing a ISO 8601 subset -> time_t conversion routine, but to my great disappointment I discovered that ISO C does not seem to allow portable conversion of a broken-down time into time_t. In other words, while mktime() is the inverse function to localtime(), there exists no mkgmtime() that is the inverse function to gmtime(). I knew that the C standard library time API is a strange design, but I had no idea that it was *that* bad. The only practical way to get from a broken-down UTC time to time_t seems to be to assume that we are on a POSIX system where the time_t representation is exactly specified. Or did I miss something? In case someone of you is in contact with the folks revising ISO C, I have now a whole list of things that should be fixed in time.h: - add inverse function for gmtime() (mkutime() or mkgmtime()) - add to strftime() conversion specifiers for ISO 8601 week-of-year and year-of-week. - remove the second leap second 61 mentioned in the footnote (contradicts to UTC definition) Instead of adding an inverse function for gmtime, one could also extend struct tm by a new field tm_offset, which is in seconds the difference between the time in the struct tm and the corresponding universal time (in my opinion a much cleaner solution than the tm_isdst hack). But I guess, this might break existing code that does not initialize tm_offset ... Having a tm_offset in struct tm would however still be a good idea as this would allow to implement in strftime() conversion specifiers for the time zone offset (much more interesting than the time zone name). Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Science grad student, Purdue University, Indiana, USA -- email: kuhn(a)cs.purdue.edu

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tzcode1997a.tar.gz and tzdata1997a.tar.gz
by ado Jan. 21, 1997

Jan. 21, 1997

The files ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzcode1997a.tar.gz and ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata1997a.tar.gz are now available. These include Paul Eggert's Antarctica (and other changes). I've finessed the "getopt" issue by checking against both -1 and EOF (regardless of POSIX, SunOS 4.1.1's manual says -1 is returned while SunOS 5.5's manual says EOF is returned). --ado

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interested in your mailing list
by Wayne Olsen Jan. 21, 1997

Jan. 21, 1997

send me information please wayne olsen

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More about Antartica
by Antoine Leca Jan. 21, 1997

Jan. 21, 1997

Hello, I've dig up some informations about timezones in the French Southern Territories. First, a Web page in English is available at <URL:http://www.icair.iac.org.nz/science/reports/fr/IFRTP.html>. IFRTP (Institut Français pour la Recherche et la Technologie Polaire) is the French organism in charge of the scientific stations there. They don't have a web page of their own presently. When they will have one, it will be linked in the proper place in <http://www.mesr.fr/organism.htm>. I called this organism, and Mrs. Nicole Pailleau which is in charge of the communications with the remote stations gave me the local hours there. She confirms me that no stations use daylight saving time, even Terre Adelie that is connected with Tasmania for support. There is really two different zones: * one is the islands in the Southern Indian Ocean, namely Kerguelen, Crozet, Amsterdam and Saint-Paul. There are 3 meteorologic bases, in the Kerguelen, in Crozet and in Amsterdam. They are constantly at UTC+5: Martin-de-Viviès Base, Amsterdam Island, -374105+0773155, since 1950 30 persons in winter, 50 in summer Port-aux-Français, Kerguelen Islands, -492110+0701303, since 1951 80 persons in winter, 120 in summer Alfred-Faure Base, Crozet Islands, -462551+0515152, since 1964 35 persons in winter, 50 in summer St Paul Island, near Amsterdam, is uninhabited since 1927 The islands were inhabited by whale-hunters (with oil factories) in the 1920's. They are supported from the island of Réunion. Since they are really in the Indian Ocean, I give them the zone name of Indian/Kerguelen, the name of the largest island; Indian/Port_aux_Francais ought to be more appropriate, but too long. * the second is a base in the main continent, in a area called Terre Adélie. It is named Dumont-d'Urville, and it lies at UTC+10 all year round. It holds 35 persons in winter and 100 in summer. Previously, there were another base, named Port-Martin; it was destroyed by fire in 1954. I included it in the statitics about the past. Also, I read in <http://www.antdiv.gov.au/aad/exop/sfo/macca/macca_aws.html> that Macquarie Is is in the same timezone as Tasmania. But I don't know if it is inhabited all-year round. I joined two diff files about the changes. *** antarc~1 Sun Nov 24 02:07:38 1996 --- ant.new Mon Jan 20 19:47:06 1997 *************** *** 58,71 **** # France # # French Southern Territories with year-round inhabitants ! # Amsterdam Island ! # Crozet Islands ! # Kerguelen Islands ! # St Paul Island # ! # year-round base ! # Dumont d'Urville, Adelie Land, since IGY # Germany - year-round base # Georg von Neumayer --- 58,95 ---- # France # + # From Antoine Leca <Antoine.Leca(a)Renault.FR> (1996-01-20): + # Timezones from Nicole Pailleau at IFRTP (French institute). + # She confirms that French Southern Territories and Terre Adelie bases + # doesn't observe daylight saving time, even if Terre Adelie supplies came + # from Tasmania. + # # French Southern Territories with year-round inhabitants ! # ! # Martin-de-Vivies Base, Amsterdam Island, -374105+0773155, since 1950 ! # Alfred-Faure Base, Crozet Islands, -462551+0515152, since 1964 ! # Port-aux-Francais, Kerguelen Islands, -492110+0701303, since 1951 # ! # St Paul Island - near Amsterdam, uninhabited since 1927 ! # ! # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] ! Zone Indian/Kerguelen 0 - ___ 1950 # Port-aux-Francais ! 5:00 - TFT # ISO code TF Time ! # ! # year-round base in the main continent ! # Dumont-d'Urville, Terre Adelie (Adelie Land), -6040 +14001, since 1956-11 ! # ! # Previously, another base at Port-Martin, 50km east, was operated since 1947 ! # It was destroyed by fire on 1952-01-14 ! # ! # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] ! Zone Antarctica/DumontDUrville 0 - ___ 1947 ! 10:00 - PMT 1952 Jan 14 # Port-Martin Time ! 0 - ___ 1956 Nov ! 10:00 - DDUT # Dumont-d'Urville Time ! # References ! # <URL:http://www.icair.iac.org.nz/science/reports/fr/IFRTP.html> (1996-01-17). ! # Germany - year-round base # Georg von Neumayer *** zone.tab 1996-11-24 02:07:38 tzdata96n --- zone.tab 1997-01-17 18:38:22 tzdata *************** *** 34,39 **** --- 34,40 ---- AQ -6448-06406 Antarctica/Palmer Palmer Station, Anvers Island AQ -6736+06253 Antarctica/Mawson Mawson Station, Holme Bay AQ -6617+11031 Antarctica/Casey Casey Station, Bailey Peninsula + AQ -6040+14001 Antarctica/DumontDUrville Dumont-d'Urville Base, Terre Adelie AR -3436-05827 America/Buenos_Aires E Argentina (BA, DF, SC, TF) AR -3257-06040 America/Rosario NE Argentina (SF, ER, CN, MN, CC, FM, LP, CH) AR -3124-06411 America/Cordoba W Argentina (CB, SA, TM, LR, SJ, SL, NQ, RN) *************** *** 310,315 **** --- 311,317 ---- SZ -2618+03106 Africa/Mbabane TC +2128-07108 America/Grand_Turk TD +1207+01503 Africa/Ndjamena + TF -492110+0701303 Indian/Kerguelen TG +0608+00113 Africa/Lome TH +1345+10031 Asia/Bangkok TJ +3835+06848 Asia/Dushanbe

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Re: minor fixes for tzcode1996o
by ado＠elsie Jan. 20, 1997

Jan. 20, 1997

> This fixes potential buffer overflows, corrects getopt(3) usage > (getopt(3) returns -1, not EOF these days), and adds another > PCTS tweak to pass an arguably bogus test. The diff is reversed, > sorry about that. > ... > --- time/localtime.c Mon Jan 13 20:17:09 1997 > ... > - if ((strlen(p) + strlen(name) + 2) >= sizeof fullname) > + if ((strlen(p) + strlen(name) + 1) >= sizeof fullname) > return -1; > ... There's a problem if the number of characters in a to-be-generated full file name (exclusive of the trailing '\0') equals or exceeds the size of the filename buffer. The number of characters (exclusive of the trailing '\0') is strlen(p) + strlen(name) + 1 (where the "1" is for the slash that separates the directory from the name) and the size of the filename buffer is sizeof fullname It looks to me as if the above test is correct; does anyone see something I've missed? > --- time/zdump.c Mon Jan 13 20:17:17 1997 > ... > (void) strncpy(buf, abbr(&tm), (sizeof buf) - 1); > - buf[(sizeof buf) - 1] = '\0'; > ... > (void) strncpy(buf, abbr(&newtm), > (sizeof buf) - 1); > - buf[(sizeof buf) - 1] = '\0'; > ... > (void) strncpy(loab, abbr(&lotm), (sizeof loab) - 1); > - loab[(sizeof loab) - 1] = '\0'; The strncpy's above all have static arrays as their destinations; since the static array's are initialized to '\0's, and since the strncpy's can't change the last positions in the arrays (given the "- 1"s in the strncpy arguments), the sets of the last elements to '\0' seem unneeded. Does anyone see something I've missed? > --- time/zic.c Wed Jan 15 16:41:36 1997 > ... > - while ((c = getopt(argc, argv, "d:l:p:L:vsy:")) != -1) > + while ((c = getopt(argc, argv, "d:l:p:L:vsy:")) != EOF) If anyone knows a good way of conditionalizing this (to cope with, for example, SunOS 4.1.1), I'd appreciate hearing from you. --ado

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