std-unix@ut-sally.UUCP (03/08/86)
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 86 13:14:34 EST From: elsie!ado@SEISMO.CSS.GOV Source for the time zone compiler discussed here earlier has been posted to mod.sources. The new posting incorporates changes suggested by net readers: * "newctime" now returns a pointer to a string of exactly the same form as that returned by "ctime"--no time zone abbreviation appended. * the format of "time zone information files" has been changed so that the files can hold descriptions of arbitrarily large size. I agree with munnari!kre--certainly the P1003 standard ought not require conforming implementations to provide exhaustive time conversion capabilities; kre's note about what the standard actually might look like is a good starting place. Still, the standard ought to allow folks to do arbitrary time conversion if they want to; the mod.sources posting should provide both an idea of just how arbitrary governments have been (and can be expected to be) in defining "local time," and an idea of the sort of mechanism that would be required to deal with this arbitrariness. -- UUCP: ..decvax!seismo!elsie!ado ARPA: elsie!ado@seismo.ARPA DEC, VAX, Elsie & Ado are Digital, Borden & Shakespeare trademarks. Volume-Number: Volume 5, Number 68