On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 12:42:18PM -0600, Dave Rolsky wrote: > 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.
I really don't know. Three-letter abbreviations are POSIX.1. They might be obsolete, but they are still supported by most implementations, and used widely. "Tools not policy" seem to apply here. Cheers, \Anton. -- Civilization is a fractal patchwork of old and new and dangerously new. -- Vernor Vinge
