Alain Petit <alain.petit <at> oracle.com> writes:
[As I was using an incorrect email, I am resending. Apologies if duplicates were issued] Hi
I am looking at the following timezone definition
# Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone America/Metlakatla 15:13:42 - LMT 1867 Oct 18 -8:46:18 - LMT 1900 Aug 20 12:00 -8:00 - PST 1942 -8:00 US P%sT 1946 -8:00 - PST 1969 -8:00 US P%sT 1983 Oct 30 2:00 -8:00 US MeST
I am trying to make sense of the MeST [the format].
I think PST means "Pacific Standard Time", and P%sT becomes PST or PDT according to the US rule
in
effect [and making it Pacific Standard Time or Pacific Daylight Time].
However I cannot figure out what MeST would be, apart from Metlakatla Standard Time ? [I found MEST - Middle European Standard Time, but Metlakatla is not in Europe]
Searching for Metlakatla [google] always refers it as AKST [Alaska Standard Time].
So 2 questions
a) What would MeST mean? [and why no '%s' for it?]
b) Where can I find the meaning of these abbreviations [as I will probably find others that will confuse me in the future]
Thanks
-Alain
I ended up researching pretty much the same question after a timezone library I use returned "MeST" for America/Metlakatla. I went to the tz database source, obtained from http://www.iana.org/time-zones . The data files are peppered with notes that provide discussion and context to many of the timezone oddities. Short answer: MeST is Metlakatla Standard Time. No %s because the Metlakata Indian Reservation does not observer daylight savings time. Long answer: Here are are the relevant background notes from the 'northamerica' file in tzdata2011n.tar.gz. # From Arthur David Olson (2011-02-09): # I just spoke by phone with a staff member at the Metlakatla Indian # Community office (using contact information available at # <a href="http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/dca/commdb/CIS.cfm? Comm_Boro_name=Metlakatla"> # http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/dca/commdb/CIS.cfm?Comm_Boro_name=Metlakatla # </a>). # It's shortly after 1:00 here on the east coast of the United States; # the staffer said it was shortly after 10:00 there. When I asked whether # that meant they were on Pacific time, they said no--they were on their # own time. I asked about daylight saving; they said it wasn't used. I # did not inquire about practices in the past. # From Arthur David Olson (2011-08-17): # For lack of better information, assume that Metlakatla's # abandonment of use of daylight saving resulted from the 1983 vote.