Hi Firoz,

I need help with getting data/information files for certain zones on NeXTSTEP

I may not be able to help directly, but I may be able to help save you some effort. (I used to work for NeXT and indeed was responsible for putting out a patch or two for the NEXTSTEP timezone files.) NeXT did not modify the timezone files or zic sources in any material fashion. So if you're having trouble running zic on a input zoneinfo file, it's probably because the version of zic on your NEXTSTEP system is sufficiently old that it doesn't understand whatever format your input zoneinfo files are in. For example, you write:

They are not the standard GMT+5, GMT+6, etc. files, but need it for half hour changes. I guess GMT+55 (for GMT + 5.30).

I would suggest that you look at the man page for your version of zic and see whether this gives you sufficient information about the input format it expects. Alternatively, you may wish search the TZ archives on elsie.nci.nih.gov for examples of really really old input zoneinfo files (circa 1992 for NEXTSTEP 3.x and circa 1990 for NEXTSTEP 1.0 and 2.x), which you can then modify and run through your version of zic.

I would really appreciate it if someone could send me step by step instructions on how to do this, or send me the data files themselves after running zic or whatever. I tried to run zic, but came up with all kinds of compiler and data errors.

I don't think running zic itself is a major issue (assuming you're following the instructions in its man page). Rather, I think the format of the input zoneinfo files is what's biting you, and all you have to do is find the right format for these files (as described above), which you can then modify. If you need more specific help, then probably you will need to explain further what you are trying to achieve with your zoneinfo files. In other words, NEXTSTEP already provides zoneinfo data files. So which timezone do you want to change, and what changes do you want to make within that timezone file? Manavendra Thakur