> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> Bill- >> >> >> UTC (Universal Time Code) means something like what you get from >> localtime(), but with a " -0500" or " +0500" following > > UTC actually means 'Universal Time Coordinated' and you're talking > about the format which he already gave as not including the TZ info. > Basically he has a GMT time.
Sorry, but neither of you is correct. UTC is not a TLA, it is a compromise between the English and French terminology. The following from the "NIST Time and Frequency FAQ" explains it. "In 1970 the Coordinated Universal Time system was devised by an international advisory group of technical experts within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The ITU felt it was best to designate a single abbreviation for use in all languages in order to minimize confusion. Since unanimous agreement could not be achieved on using either the English word order, CUT, or the French word order, TUC, the acronym UTC was chosen as a compromise." But UTC is not strictly an acronym because the letter order does not correspond to the word order of either French or English. The announcements on WWV still use the term "Coordinated Universal Time" and I imagine the French use their name for it. The notation "GMT" is deprecated and has generally been eliminated from all official usage. > >> UTC simply means you have a + or - in \d\d\d\d where the first two are >> hours and the second two minutes format in relation to GMT (UTC +0000); > > That's just a way of 'formatting' or 'representing' the UTC time. No, that indicates local time, not UTC. The +/- is hours difference from UTC instead of using a specific time zone abbrev. which all people are not familiar with. eg. "13 Dec 2005 10:47:20 -0800" is local time for USA Pacific Standard Time, or "PST", which is 8 hours behind UTC. _______________________________________________ ActivePerl mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe: http://listserv.ActiveState.com/mailman/mysubs
