Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!uniwa!cc.curtin.edu.au!nmurrayr
From: nmurrayr@cc.curtin.edu.au (Ron Murray)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Time Zones: A Plea for Standards?
Message-ID: <1991Apr15.200244.7775@cc.curtin.edu.au>
Date: 15 Apr 91 12:02:44 GMT
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Lines: 33


   While it's nice to see that programmers are beginning to realise that there
IS life outside their own country / timezone, it would be nice if they could
find some way of specifying this timezone without using a TZ environment
variable.
   Perhaps I should explain. My interests are fairly wide-ranging, and they
include astronomy and various messaging systems. It seems, however, that
every man and his dog gets the brilliant idea of specifying the user's
time zone with an environment variable called. for some reason, "TZ". Even
that wouldn't be quite so bad if they all wanted it in the same format, but
some programs seem to want a three-letter code (e.g. "WST"), some want this
code but with a displacement from UTC added (and barf if it happens to be
negative!), and some are even worse. The result is that I can't have more
than one of these programs on my system at the same time, or one or more of
them gets upset, or more likely insists that the local time is 4 am when the
sun is shining outside.
   It can't be that hard, fellas! Why not either find another way of specifying
time zone, or perhaps using your program's name in the variable (something
like "TZ_MYPROG" would do fine)?
   Think about it.

.....Ron

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