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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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