Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1a 12/4/83; site rlgvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!guy From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.bugs.usg Subject: Re: TZ Rationalization Requested Message-ID: <1802@rlgvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 11-Mar-84 00:48:12 EST Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1802 Posted: Sun Mar 11 00:48:12 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 11-Mar-84 07:07:51 EST References: <341@dual.UUCP>, <1795@rlgvax.UUCP> <2359@brl-vgr.ARPA> Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA Lines: 25 > ? I thought the convention on USG UNIXes was to set TZ in one of the > rc files so that it would be in everyone's environment. Unfortunately, setting it in an rc file doesn't do any good for processes run directly out of /etc/inittab, like "getty". > MY complaint about all this is that the Berkeley kernel does not > supply the timezone name (CST, CDT, etc.). Otherwise their system call > seems like a good idea, provided that TZ in the environment is allowed > to override the system timezone for those rare cases where that is > useful. In the US I don't think this is a problem, as the offset from GMT uniquely identifies the time zone (although there may be weird exceptions), but the V7 scheme of having an offset-to-timezone-name table may break elsewhere; I remember seeing a claim in net.mail.somethingorother that European countries give the same zone different names because they want the name to make sense in their native languages. If this is the case, the V7 scheme is OK in the US but the name would have to be supplied independently, such as with a system call. I guess the implementors, who lived in the US, figured that the time zone name was redundant information and should be computed from the offset. Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy