Subject: Re: $TZ
To: Michael Richardson <mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>
From: Andrew Brown <atatat@atatdot.net>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 10/08/2001 13:48:16
>    >> %date
>    >> Wed Oct  3 11:45:25 EDT 2001
>    >> % TZ=PST5PDT export TZ
>    >> %date
>    >> Wed Oct  3 11:46:00 PDT 2001
>    >> 
>    >> huh? It changed the name, but not the timezone???
>
>    Andrew> try PST8PDT  :)
>
>  Hmm. Duh on me.

or, if you're interested, try this one:

	PST8PDT7,M4.5.0/02:00:00,M10.5.0/02:00:00

see also tzset(3).

>  Linux apparently ignores $TZ completely.

it might be that linux has lost its time zone files.  fwiw, setting TZ
to PST8PDT under netbsd is handled by the fact that there's a file
called PST8PDT in /usr/share/zoneinfo.  other possible strings (like
the above example) aren't quite so lucky, so the tz code looks for a
file called posixrules and offsets its results based on your string.

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