[desktop-discuss] [Fwd: [Bug 88754] clock applet should support changing timezones]

[Glynn Foster]

Hey,

Bart Smaalders wrote:
> I've been mulling over a enhancement to timezones on Solaris; I've
> mentioned this before but I was wondering what the desktop folks
> think of this idea...
> 
> Suppose we invent a new timezone type that represents an additional
> level of indirection through a file. It might look something like this:
> 
> $ export TZ="</home/barts/.tzfile>"
> $ cat /home/barts/.tzfile
> US/Pacific
> $
> 
> The libc timezone code would be modified to stat the file and
> reevaluate the timezone should it be updated.
> 
> This would support changing the current desktop timezone w/o logging
> out or restarting any processes.  Applications that make heavy use
> of localtime() or other functions that convert between GMT and localtime
> might experience some performance issues, so this might not be
> appropriate for applications that do a lot of logging such as
> webservers.  For laptops traveling between timezones, it seems a lot
> nicer that just crowbaring the system's idea of time with a date(1)
> command, esp. since system log files, etc, would still be in whatever
> system timezone is used.

Sounds very useful to me.

I've mostly been resorting to using the attached script which works out quite
nice (requires TimeDate perl module).

$ cat ~/.tzlist
Pacific/Auckland        "Auckland"
Europe/Dublin   "Dublin"
Europe/Paris    "Paris"
Asia/Calcutta    "Bangalore"
Australia/Sydney    "Sydney"
Australia/Perth    "Perth"
America/Los_Angeles    "Los Angeles"
America/New_York    "New York"
America/Indiana/Indianapolis     "Indiana"
America/Chicago      "Austin"
America/Toronto    "Toronto"
Asia/Singapore    "Singapore"

$ slashtime.pl
Los Angeles  05:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (PDT) -19
Austin       07:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (CDT) -17
Toronto      08:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (EDT) -16
Indiana      08:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (EDT) -16
New York     08:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (EDT) -16
Dublin       13:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (IST) -11
Paris        14:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07 (CEST) -10
Bangalore    18:15 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (IST)  -6.5
Singapore    20:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (SGT)  -4
Perth        20:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (WST)  -4
Sydney       22:45 Tue, 10 Jul 07  (EST)  -2
Local        00:45 Wed, 11 Jul 07 (NZST)  +0
Auckland     00:45 Wed, 11 Jul 07 (NZST)  +0


Glynn
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