Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!world!geoff From: geoff@world.std.com (Geoff Collyer) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: time zone abbreviations list wanted [current accumulation] Keywords: SLT Message-ID: <1991May22.013843.28735@world.std.com> Date: 22 May 91 01:38:43 GMT References: <7495@mace.cc.purdue.edu> <12571@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> Organization: Software Tool & Die Netnews Research Center Lines: 27 Vic Abell: >Special thanks goes to Stephen J. Walick >who pointed out the list of time zones in .../libc/dateok.c of Henry >Spencer's C News sources. [Make that Geoff Collyer's and Henry Spencer's C News sources. In this case, the code comes from me, Mark Moraes and Rich Wales via Rayan Zachariassen.] The currently-available C News time zone table is known to contain errors; the people we cribbed it from had errors in their tables. So don't take it too seriously. >The list is incomplete -- I know of several other abbreviations I haven't >yet been able to interpret. The list may also contain errors -- I welcome >corrections. The basic problems are: local goverments change the definitions (e.g. in the USSR now, where some of Stalin's time changes are being reversed or exaggerated); there are conflicts (e.g. how many countries claim IST and IDT?); and people seem to just make them up as they go along. The solution is to abolish use of alphabetic time zone names, which RFCs 1122/1123 also encourage. Alphabetic time zone names just don't work. (Well, "GMT" is fairly well understood.) -- Geoff Collyer world.std.com!geoff, uunet.uu.net!geoff