Re: Can't set the timezone for "date".

[Alan Mackenzie]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 01:29:05AM -0700, Brian Dessent wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> > I think it would be helpful if the manual said something like this.  Even
> > coreutils.info just says (in a fairly buried place) "Normally, `date'
> > operates in the time zone indicated by `TZ', or the system default if
> > `TZ' is not set", without giving any indication of exactly how $TZ
> > indicates.  I found this unhelpful and frustrating.

> The coreutils info page can't just say "run tzconfig" because that only
> applies to glibc systems, whereas coreutils is used on many other
> platforms as well -- and they all have different ways of setting the
> system time zone.  Welcome to portable software, where documenting
> anything system-specific in a generic way is difficult if not
> impossible, unless you want to resort to a long list of "On Linux, do
> this; On Solaris, do this; On IRIX, do this; On HP-UX, do this; On
> Darwin, do this; On FreeBSD, do this; On Windows, do this."

How is the casual reader to know that this is system dependent?

How about something like this:

The precise meaning of @env{TZ} depends on the operating system, and
should be described by the system's lower level documentation.
Typically, it includes a mechanism for summer time.

> Brian

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Ittersbach, Germany).