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From: std-unix@ut-sally.UUCP (Moderator, John Quarterman)
Newsgroups: mod.std.unix
Subject: TZ and TERM per process; V5N14
Message-ID: <3961@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Jan-86 20:11:09 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.3961
Posted: Thu Jan  9 20:11:09 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Jan-86 23:19:52 EST
Organization: IEEE/P1003 Portable Operating System Environment Committee
Lines: 37
Approved: jsq@sally.UUCP

From: ukc!minster!forsyth
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 86 18:03:15 GMT

It can be helpful for TZ to be a per-process value (eg, in the
environment).  For instance, if I am logged in to a computer
several time zones away, with TZ set to reflect my local time,
I might say

	echo "echo go to the pub | write $NAME" | at 7pm

to get a message at 7pm my time, or (in the same session)

	TZ= at 3am <ada-testrun

to cause a long-running job to be started on the remote
system at a little-used time (their time).

Similarly, I might set TERM per process if I wish
to check the output of a supposedly terminal-independent
program for different terminal types:
	TERM=vt100 greeneking | vis
	TERM=520 greeneking | vis
	...
I might do something similar if running emulators in
different layers, though arguably that might be handled
by the ``per port'' notion.  (Although /etc/ttytype or
whatever is hard pressed to deal with people logging
in on different terminals on the same network or dial-in
port.)

There are other ways of doing these things,
but I find this compositional style more attractive
than, say, -l (local time) or -z (time zone) options
to `at' and other commands.
I'd be interested to see other approaches.

Volume-Number: Volume 5, Number 14