- tz - lists.iana.org

[PROPOSED] Fix unlikely backslash bug in scripts
by Paul Eggert Nov. 12, 2025

Nov. 12, 2025

* tzselect.ksh, workman.sh: Use printf, not echo, if the argument might in theory contain a backslash. --- tzselect.ksh | 9 +++++---- workman.sh | 2 +- 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/tzselect.ksh b/tzselect.ksh index 7cd8679d..85a8c670 100644 --- a/tzselect.ksh +++ b/tzselect.ksh @@ -145,9 +145,11 @@ do t*) # Undocumented option, used for developer testing. zonetabtype=$OPTARG;; -help) - exec echo "$usage";; + say "$usage" + exit;; -version) - exec echo "tzselect $PKGVERSION$TZVERSION";; + say "tzselect $PKGVERSION$TZVERSION" + exit;; -*) say >&2 "$0: -$opt$OPTARG: unknown option; try '$0 --help'"; exit 1;; *) @@ -516,8 +518,7 @@ while ' ="$distance_table" ) echo >&2 'Please select one of the following timezones,' - echo >&2 'listed roughly in increasing order' \ - "of distance from $coord". + say >&2 "listed roughly in increasing order of distance from $coord." doselect $regions region=$select_result tz=$( diff --git a/workman.sh b/workman.sh index 91621b10..5da55654 100644 --- a/workman.sh +++ b/workman.sh @@ -51,6 +51,6 @@ elif (type nroff && type perl) >/dev/null 2>&1; then } ' else - echo >&2 "$0: please install groff, or mandoc and col" + printf >&2 '%s\n' "$0: please install groff, or mandoc and col" exit 1 fi -- 2.51.0

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Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance
by Tim Parenti Nov. 11, 2025

Nov. 11, 2025

Earlier this year, Julian O'Shea released a short video detailing a peculiarity about the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, "How Daylight Savings Broke this $24 Million Building": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfzsBMUiGGQ The shrine, originally dedicated in 1934 to honor those who served in World War I, was designed with a small aperture in the roof. Each Remembrance Day (11 November) at 11:00am local time, the position of the sun would be perfectly aligned to shine through the aperture, allowing the light of its rays to fall upon an inscribed stone inside, thus commemorating the hour of the Armistice. The problem? Several decades later, in 1971, Victoria adopted DST, but of course the aperture had been tuned to the position of the sun at 11:00am AEST. So what do you do to preserve this meaningful element of an annual ceremony with important dignitaries, when it's effectively been moved an hour earlier to 11:00am AEDT instead? The answer involves a clever system of mirrors. (And the general public still gets to witness the light following its true path an hour later!) Since this is quite a grand physical representation of how we interact with our timekeeping, I've added this to tz-art.html, as well as a few fixups to unclosed HTML tags nearby. -- Tim Parenti

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Cape Town
by Justin Singh Nov. 11, 2025

Nov. 11, 2025

Hello The Timezone for Cape Town is UTC+01:00 The western Northern Cape and Western Cape differ, however. Everywhere on land west of 22°30′ E effectively experiences year-round daylight saving time because of its location in true UTC+01:00 but still being in South African Standard Time. Sunrise and sunset are thus relatively late in Cape Town, compared to the rest of the country.

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Nunavik to stop changing its clocks after March 2026?
by Paul Eggert Nov. 8, 2025

Nov. 8, 2025

Yesterday’s CBC News report “Nunavimmiut have wound back their clocks for the last time”[1] is so light on details that for now I am merely attaching a draft patch to this email for review, rather than installing the patch into the development repository. I found no announcement of the change at www.makivvik.ca. Although I asked for more details by using the form at <https://www.makivvik.ca/contact/>, these sorts of contact forms often do not work, so if anyone has access to more-authoritative info than the CBC report, please let us know. Among other things, details in the news report make me wonder how likely Makivvik would reconsider its decision before the change would take effect about a year from now. [1]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavik-daylight-savings-9.6969650

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Phoenix AZ timezone issue
by akbar＠marketing-qa.com Nov. 5, 2025

Nov. 5, 2025

🧭 Problem Summary Arizona remains one of the few U.S. states that does not observe Daylight Saving Time (DST) since 1968. However, it identifies its time zone as Mountain Standard Time (MST) — which does change to MDT when DST applies elsewhere. Because of this, every spring and fall, Arizona’s effective time alignment shifts: In summer, Arizona matches Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). In winter, it matches Mountain Standard Time (MST). This causes systemic issues in digital calendars, automated scheduling, flight bookings, and cross-state business coordination, requiring frequent manual adjustments. 💡 Recommended Solution Create and declare a dedicated time zone: “Phoenix Standard Time.” This would be a fixed, non-DST time zone officially recognized by IANA (the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) and major platforms (Microsoft, Apple, Google). All digital devices could use it as a unique time zone identifier that never shifts with DST — eliminating confusion and rescheduling errors. It would function similarly to “UTC+7” year-round but would display as “Phoenix Standard Time (PST)” in software systems. Thank you Akbar Jaffer Akbar Jaffer Office: (415) 335-6950 Mobile: (650) 430-0232 Web: Marketing-QA.com <http://www.marketing-qa.com/> Meeting: Book time W/Akbar <https://calendly.com/ajaffer/> LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/akbarjaffer/> | POI Blog <https://pointofintersection.org/>

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How to select zones for a TimeZone picker
by Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia Nov. 3, 2025

Nov. 3, 2025

Hi all, I'm building a TimeZone picker with the following constraints: 1. At least one distinct timezone per country (so that e.g. there is an entry for Atlantic/Reykjavik instead of mapping IS to Africa/Abidjan) 2. Within a country, do not show timezones that currently have identical rules to another timezone in the same country (i.e. historical differences don't matter). Because of (1) I started from zone.tab rather than zone1970.tab. However, I'm not sure how to handle (2). For example, Spain has three zones in zone.tab: Europe/Madrid, Africa/Ceuta, and Atlantic/Canary. But as far as most users are concerned, as of today there are only two timezones in Spain: Madrid and Canary Islands. Ceuta follows Madrid rules, so there should be no need to show this as an option to the user. Another example: the U.S. lists 29 zones, but only 8 are distinct today (ignoring historical changes). So, the question: Any suggestions on how to filter timezones within each country to drop those that as of today are not relevant except for historical differences? Thank you, Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia guille.rodriguez(a)gmail.com

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[PROPOSED] tzfree now preserves errno
by Paul Eggert Nov. 3, 2025

Nov. 3, 2025

* Makefile, NEWS, newtzset.3: Mention this. * localtime.c (FREE_PRESERVES_ERRNO): Default to 1 if 'free' is known to preserve errno, 0 otherwise. (tzfree): Preserve errno if 'free' does not. --- Makefile | 2 ++ NEWS | 2 ++ localtime.c | 15 +++++++++++++++ newtzset.3 | 4 ++++ 4 files changed, 23 insertions(+) diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile index 0fe8a9f8..0d33fa17 100644 --- a/Makefile +++ b/Makefile @@ -239,6 +239,8 @@ LDLIBS= # -DEPOCH_OFFSET=N if the 'time' function returns a value N greater # than what POSIX specifies, assuming local time is UT. # For example, N is 252460800 on AmigaOS. +# -DFREE_PRESERVES_ERRNO=[01] if the 'free' function munges or preserves errno +# (default is guessed) # -DHAVE_DECL_ASCTIME_R=0 if <time.h> does not declare asctime_r # on POSIX platforms predating POSIX.1-2024 # -DHAVE_DECL_ENVIRON if <unistd.h> declares 'environ' diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS index 1ed9b2eb..a9b2d321 100644 --- a/NEWS +++ b/NEWS @@ -93,6 +93,8 @@ Unreleased, experimental changes option is incompatible with POSIX.1-2024 and earlier. It also costs CPU time and memory. + tzfree now preserves errno, consistently with POSIX.1-2024 'free'. + tzcode now uses mempcpy if available, guessing its availability. Compile with -DHAVE_MEMPCPY=1 or 0 to override the guess. diff --git a/localtime.c b/localtime.c index b85941f2..46acf3bd 100644 --- a/localtime.c +++ b/localtime.c @@ -2061,10 +2061,25 @@ tzalloc(char const *name) return sp; } +#ifndef FREE_PRESERVES_ERRNO +# if ((defined _POSIX_VERSION && 202405 <= _POSIX_VERSION) \ + || (defined __GLIBC__ && 2 < __GLIBC__ + (33 <= __GLIBC_MINOR__)) \ + || defined __OpenBSD__ || defined __sun) +# define FREE_PRESERVES_ERRNO 1 +# else +# define FREE_PRESERVES_ERRNO 0 +# endif +#endif + void tzfree(timezone_t sp) { + int err; + if (!FREE_PRESERVES_ERRNO) + err = errno; free(sp); + if (!FREE_PRESERVES_ERRNO) + errno = err; } /* diff --git a/newtzset.3 b/newtzset.3 index 3801ab1b..028cfd25 100644 --- a/newtzset.3 +++ b/newtzset.3 @@ -379,6 +379,10 @@ If successful, the function returns a nonnull pointer to the newly allocated object. Otherwise, it returns a null pointer and sets .IR errno . +The +.B tzfree +function does not modify +.IR errno . .SH ERRORS .TP .B EOVERFLOW -- 2.51.0

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[PROPOSED] Improve TZ="/..." security and speed (NetBSD only)
by Paul Eggert Oct. 28, 2025

Oct. 28, 2025

* NEWS: Mention security. * localtime.c (O_REGULAR): Default to 0. (tzloadbody): Open TZif files with O_REGULAR. Suppress unnecessary call to 'stat' if O_REGULAR is present. --- NEWS | 3 +++ localtime.c | 7 +++++-- 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS index 64d32bf3..1ed9b2eb 100644 --- a/NEWS +++ b/NEWS @@ -40,6 +40,9 @@ Unreleased, experimental changes and reject relative names containing ".." directory components; formerly, only privileged programs did those two things. These changes were inspired by similar behavior in FreeBSD. + On NetBSD, unprivileged programs now use O_REGULAR to check + whether a TZ setting starting with '/' names a regular file, + avoiding a minor security race still present elsewhere. TZ strings taken from tzalloc arguments are now treated with no less caution than TZ strings taken from the environment, as the old undocumented behavior would have been hard to explain. diff --git a/localtime.c b/localtime.c index 0d2d2a93..b85941f2 100644 --- a/localtime.c +++ b/localtime.c @@ -355,6 +355,9 @@ static int openat(int dd, char const *path, int oflag) { unreachable (); } #ifndef O_PATH # define O_PATH 0 #endif +#ifndef O_REGULAR +# define O_REGULAR 0 +#endif #ifndef O_RESOLVE_BENEATH # define O_RESOLVE_BENEATH 0 #endif @@ -900,7 +903,7 @@ tzloadbody(char const *name, struct state *sp, char tzloadflags, register int tzheadsize = sizeof(struct tzhead); int dd = AT_FDCWD; int oflags = (O_RDONLY | O_BINARY | O_CLOEXEC | O_CLOFORK - | O_IGNORE_CTTY | O_NOCTTY); + | O_IGNORE_CTTY | O_NOCTTY | O_REGULAR); int err; struct stat st; st.st_ctime = 0; @@ -927,7 +930,7 @@ tzloadbody(char const *name, struct state *sp, char tzloadflags, continue; else if (issetugid()) return ENOTCAPABLE; - else { + else if (!O_REGULAR) { /* Check for devices, as their mere opening could have unwanted side effects. Though racy, there is no portable way to fix the races. This check is needed -- 2.48.1

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Iana build failures on Windows
by Manuela Friedrich Oct. 28, 2025

Oct. 28, 2025

Hello Paul, I have hit a compile error for zic.c on Windows. Git commit 9e0bf0b42d68b3d9ad0bc7ff70fc92d87f8b40d2 zic.c zic.c(152): error C2081: 'mode_t': name in formal parameter list illegal zic.c(2437): warning C4116: unnamed type definition in parentheses NMAKE : U1077: '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.12.25827\bin\HostX64\x64\cl.EXE"' : return code '0x2' Stop. Can you please advise? Please do not release a new version with this issue present. Thank you! Regards Manuela Friedrich

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[PROPOSED] Be more like OpenBSD wrt ".."
by Paul Eggert Oct. 25, 2025

Oct. 25, 2025

* localtime.c (tzloadbody): Do not worry about settings like TZ=".." (i.e., trailing ".." component) as the later read will fail anyway. This simplifies the code slightly, and agrees with the security-conscious OpenBSD libc. --- localtime.c | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/localtime.c b/localtime.c index f1a82370..0d2d2a93 100644 --- a/localtime.c +++ b/localtime.c @@ -941,13 +941,13 @@ tzloadbody(char const *name, struct state *sp, char tzloadflags, if (relname[0] != '/') { if (!OPENAT_TZDIR || !O_RESOLVE_BENEATH) { - /* Fail if a relative name contains a ".." component, - as such a name could read a file outside TZDIR + /* Fail if a relative name contains a non-terminal ".." component, + as such a name could read a non-directory outside TZDIR when AT_FDCWD and O_RESOLVE_BENEATH are not available. */ char const *component; for (component = relname; component[0]; component++) if (component[0] == '.' && component[1] == '.' - && ((component[2] == '/') | !component[2]) + && component[2] == '/' && (component == relname || component[-1] == '/')) return ENOTCAPABLE; } -- 2.48.1

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