Xref: utzoo comp.std.internat:731 comp.mail.headers:598 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!gatech!mcnc!rti!dg-rtp!jester!eliot From: eliot@jester.rtp.dg.com (Topher Eliot) Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,comp.mail.headers Subject: Time zone names on mail outside North America Message-ID: <1990Dec12.211026.8029@dg-rtp.dg.com> Date: 12 Dec 90 21:10:26 GMT Sender: usenet@dg-rtp.dg.com (Usenet Administration) Reply-To: eliot@dg-rtp.dg.com Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC Lines: 45 Has anyone else looked into the issue of internationalizing the time/date strings in mail headers? The X/Open conformance statement template implies that the mail program should be modified to internationalize at least some time and date strings, but it's not quite clear to me which. All the uses of time and date strings that I find in our implementation of mail end up being part of a message header. RFC822 specifies a small number of specific strings that can be used to described the timezone of the sender of a piece of mail, and also specifies a set of rules for constructing strings to represent all the remaining timezones in the rest of the world. The specific strings are the ones us North Americans are used to: EST, EDT, CST, etc., plus GMT. The rules are "military" (one letter, Z means GMT), and a +/-HHMM variety. In the rules, there is no mention of daylight savings time. The time zone database associated with the "zic" command provides named time zones for the whole world, as best I can tell. But these names don't meet the RFC822 spec. So my first question is: what kind of time zone specification do folks outside of North America expect to see on the mail they send? If I obey the 822 spec (and I feel I must), I can do one of the following: (a) specify the time in GMT, even if the sender is in Japan; (b) use the military rules (and baffle lots of people); or (c) use the +/-HHMM rules (and possibly baffle people). Is there any existing practice on this? My second question is: what should I do about daylight savings time? If my call to localtime() tells me that daylight savings time is in effect, should I (a) just ignore it, (b) try to indicate it somehow in the date string (how?), or (c) try to adjust the local time so that the time printed in the mail would be accurate if DST were NOT in effect (yuck)? By the way, I plan on sticking with English for the day and month names, as the RFC822 is quite explicit about this. If you reply to me I will summarize to the net. Thanks for your comments. -- Topher Eliot Data General Corporation eliot@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 T. W. Alexander Drive {backbone}!mcnc!rti!dg-rtp!eliot Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 (919) 248-6371 Obviously, I speak for myself, not for DG.