On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Mathieu Arnold wrote: > +-le 04/12/2003 10:05 -0600, Dave Rolsky �crivait : > | On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Anton Berezin wrote: > | > |> - even if TZ is set, it is very likely to contain something like "CET", > | > | That's not a time zone. > > Hum, what is it if not a time zone ?
It's a 3 letter abbreviation that _could_ represent one _or more_ time zones, at least sometimes. In other words, these abbreviations are not unique, nor are they indicative of exactly what rules are in effect. For example, EST is used for "Eastern Standard Time", aka America/New_York, but also for parts of Australia. Even EST in the US is ambiguous, because it's also used for America/Indianapolis, a time zone that does not observe DST, in addition to America/New_York, which does observe EST. There's been discussion about this on the list, but I'll repeat this over and over. The various 3 and 4 letter abbreviations sometimes used colloquially for time zones are often not sufficient to accurately determine what the actual time zone is, and should only be used for display purposes, as in "January 4, 2003 11:00 EST". Setting your system's time zone to such a thing is asking for trouble. -dave /*======================= House Absolute Consulting www.houseabsolute.com =======================*/
