I wrote a simpler and better parse of /etc/TIMEZONE. Also note that since /etc/init already does so one could steal its code. He is my short parse. Note, it does parse System V Release 3.1 versions which have OTHER lines of garbage (comments and such): === #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> char def_timezone[] = "GMT0"; char * gettz() { FILE * tzfp; register char *bp; register char *tbp; static char buf[132]; if ( (tzfp = fopen("/etc/TIMEZONE", "r") ) == NULL) { return(def_timezone); } while ( fgets(buf, sizeof buf, tzfp) != NULL ) { if ( buf[0] == '#' || buf[0] == '\n' ) continue; buf[strlen(buf)-1] = '\0'; /* strip newline */ if ( strchr(buf, '=') == NULL ) continue; for (tbp = buf; ; ) { bp = strtok(tbp, "; \t"); if ( bp == NULL ) break; /* should be xx=xxx; */ if ( strchr(bp, '=') != NULL && strncmp( bp, "TZ=",3) == 0 ) break; tbp = NULL; } fclose(tzfp); return(strchr(bp,'=')+1); } fclose(tzfp); return(def_timezone); } ===== Note that we use the stdio AND SysV string functions. -- =Dennis L. Mumaugh Lisle, IL ...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,lll-crg}!cuuxb!dlm