Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!jvnc.net!newsserver.technet.sg!swispl
From: swi...@solomon.technet.sg (SW International)
Subject: timezones
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Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 01:24:35 GMT
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1) Sorry, I don't know where to post this. Since timezones are used in
mail-headers, I thought this is a place as good as any...
2) I'm looking for a list of *official* timezones, as valid in mail
and/or elsewhere. Is there a ftp-site for this?
3) thx alot
--
SW International Systems Pte Ltd | "I've got a plan so cunning
14, Science Park Drive | you could put a tail on it and
Singapore Science Park | call it a weasel".. Black Adder
Singapore 0511 |
Tel: (65) 778-0066 |
Fax: (65) 777-9401 | swi...@solomon.technet.sg
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From: elsn4...@bronto.zrz.tu-berlin.de (Frank Elsner)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: timezones
Date: 29 Dec 1992 12:07:56 GMT
Organization: TUBerlin/ZRZ
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In article <BzzyL0...@newsserver.technet.sg> swi...@solomon.technet.sg
(SW International) writes:
>1) Sorry, I don't know where to post this. Since timezones are used in
> mail-headers, I thought this is a place as good as any...
>
>2) I'm looking for a list of *official* timezones, as valid in mail
> and/or elsewhere. Is there a ftp-site for this?
>
>3) thx alot
Here is what I have on this topic, hope it helps.
Frank Elsner (TUBerlin Postmaster)
---------------------------------- cut here if you like -----------------------
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From: Peter Sylvester +49 228 303245 <GRZ027@DBNGMD21>
Subject: Re: Time zone information
To: Frank Elsner <181@DB0TUZ01>
It comes up each year:
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From: POS...@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Time Zones
To: local distribution <MAIL-L> (Distribution: MAIL-L)
Comment: cc: pos...@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Hi.
Is "BST" Bering Standard Time or British Summer Time ? And how many
hours from my time in California is "MEZ" ? As far as i can find
there are no international standards for time zone names or three
letter codes. The ISO has a standard for the representation of local
time differentials (ISO 4031). In this standard the time "zone" is
indicated by a numeric offset from Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Below is a message from some folks at MIT reporting on their
investigation in to time zones.
--jon.
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 85 14:55 EST
From: Gary Dixon <GDi...@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA>
Subject: Re: zone sources
To: Salt...@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
cc: "Gary M. Palter" <Pal...@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA>,
James A Falksen <Falks...@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA>
Resent-Date: 22 Feb 85 22:43 EST
Resent-From: Salt...@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Resent-To: pos...@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Resent-Comment:
Jon,
--
Remember the discussion a couple of months ago about time zone
designators and the Multics protocol police rejection of
things not in your specification? Well, the Multics central
guru bureau has reversed field, and is about to start
accepting any time zone designator in a much larger legal
list, which I attach for your amusement. If you should ever
find yourself faced with a need to reissue the relevant RFC
and a demand for further time zone definitions, these people,
in classic Multics fashion, seem to have gotten off to a
somewhat scholarly start (notwithstanding the astrology
reference.)
--
Now if we could just get the ISO people to debate things like
this instead of proposing presentation management protocols
before anyone has built one, they might actually provide us a
useful service.
--
Regards,
Jerry
--
-------
Hi, Jerry:
Gary Palter relayed your inquiry on Multics time zones to me, as project
leader of the software team which developers the new Multics date/time
software. Jim Falksen was the other team member, and he supplied our starting
set of time zone names, which were then augmented based upon customer input.
Our investigations haven't turned up any standards for zone names, other than
the ANSI standard for US names. It took some digging to find any references
which listed zone names and offsets.
Jim Falksen used the following sources to form his initial list of time zone
names:
from THE ASTROLOGY ANNUAL REFERENCE BOOK, 1981 by Marcian B. MacGregor
and Zipporah Pottenger Dobyns, Ph.D.
"STANDARD TIME(ZONE TIME): At an International Conference held in
Washington D.C. on October 1, 1884, the Greenwich Meridian was adopted
as the prime meridian (0 degrees), with equal division of the world in
24 fifteen-degree time zones (as originally proposed by Sanford Fleming,
a Canadian civil and railway engineer). Subsequently the following
International Time Zones were adopted:
-0000 WET Western European Time
-0100 WAT West Africa Time
-0200 AT Azores Time
-0300 BST Brazil Std Time
-0330 NFT Newfoundland Time
-0400 AST Atlantic Std Time
-0500 EST Eastern Std Time
-0600 CST Central Std Time
-0700 MST Mountain Std Time
-0800 PST Pacific Std Time
-0900 YST Yukon Std Time
-1000 CAT Central Alaska Time
-1030 HST Hawaiian Std Time
*Hawaii adopted -1000 in 1947
-1100 NT Nome Time
-1100 BT Bering Time
-1200 IDLW INternational Date Line, West
+0100 CET Central European Time
+0200 EET Eastern European Time, USSR Zone 1
+0300 BT Baghdad Time, USSR Zone 2
+0330 IT Iran Time
+0400 USSR Zone 3
+0500 USSR Zone 4
+0530 IST Indian Standard Time
+0600 USSR Zone 5
+0630 NST North Sumatra Time
+0700 SST South Sumatra Time, USSR Zone 6
+0730 JT Java Time
+0800 CCT China Coast Time, USSR Zone 7
+0830 MT Moluccas Time
+0900 JST Japan Std Time, USSR Zone 8
+0930 SAST South Australia Std Time
+1000 GST Guam Std Time, USSR Zone 9
+1130 USSR Zone 10
+1130 NZT New Zealand Time
*adopted +1200 in 1945
+1200 IDLE International Date Line, East"
A second source was THE AMERICAN EPHEMERIS, 1971 to 1980, By Neil F Michelsen.
"Time ZOnes of the World
+0000 GMT Greenwich
-0100 WAT West Africa
-0200 AT Azores
-0300 Brazil Zone 2
-0330 NST Newfoundland
-0400 AST Atlantic
-0500 EST Eastern
-0600 CST Central
-0700 MST Mountain
-0800 PST Pacific
-0900 YST Yukon
-1000 AHST Alaska-Hawaii
-1030 HST Hawaiian
-1100 NT Nome
-1100 BST Bering
-1200 Int'l Date Line
+0100 CET Central European
+0100 MET MIddle European
+0200 EET Eastern European
+0300 BT Baghdad
+0400 USSR Zone 3
+0500 USSR Zone 4
+0530 IST Indian
+0600 USSR Zone 5
+0630 NST North Sumatra
+0700 SST South Sumatras
+0730 JT Java
+0800 CCT China Coast
+0900 JST Japan
+0930 SAST South Australia
+1000 GST Guam
+1200 NZT New Zealand"
From these two lists we derived the following times. Items below which are
starred were added to the basic list at customer request.
known time zones:
|-11:00 nt Nome Time
| |-10:00 ahst Alaska-Hawaii Standard Time
| | | -9:00 yst Yukon Standard Time
| | | | -8:00 pst Pacific Standard Time
| | | | | -7:00 mst Mountain Standard Time
| | | | | -7:00 pdt Pacific Daylight Time
| | | | | | -6:00 cst Central Standard Time
| | | | | | -6:00 mdt Mountain Daylight Time
| | | | | | | | | | |
|-11:00|-10:00| -9:00| -8:00| -7:00| -6:00| -5:00| -4:00| -3:00| -2:00|
| | | | | | | | | | |
Eastern Standard Time est -5:00| | | |
Central Daylight Time cdt -5:00| | | |
Atlantic Standard Time ast -4:00| | |
Eastern Daylight Time edt -4:00| | |
Newfoundland Standard Time nst -3:30 | |
Greenland Standard Time gst -3:00| |
Atlantic Daylight Time adt -3:00| |
Azores Time at -2:00|
| -1:00 wat West Africa Time
| | +0:00 ut Universal Time
| | +0:00 z Universal Time
| | +0:00 gmt Greenwich Mean Time
| | | +1:00 bst British Summer Time (*)
| | | +1:00 cet Central European Time
| | | +1:00 met Middle Europe Time
| | | +1:00 mewt Middle Europe Winter Time
| | | +1:00 swt Swedish Winter Time (*)
| | | +1:00 fwt French Winter Time (*)
| | | +1:00 hfh Heure Francais d'Hiver (*)
| | | | +2:00 mest Middle Europe Summer Time
| | | | +2:00 eet Eastern European Time
| | | | +2:00 sst Swedish Summer Time (*)
| | | | +2:00 fst French Summer Time (*)
| | | | +2:00 hfe Heure Francais d'Ete (*)
| | | | | +3:00 bt Baghdad Time
| | | | | | +4:00 zp4 GMT +4 hours.
| | | | | | | +5:00 zp5 GMT +5 hours.
| | | | | | | | | | |
| -1:00| +0:00| +1:00| +2:00| +3:00| +4:00| +5:00| +6:00| +7:00| +8:00|
| | | | | | | | | | |
Indian Standard Time ist +5:30 | | |
GMT +6 hours. zp6 +6:00| | |
(*) West Australian Standard Time wast +7:00| |
Java Time jt +7:30 |
(*) West Australian Daylight Time wadt +8:00|
China Coast Time cct +8:00|
| +9:00 jst Japan Standard Time
| +9:30 cast Central Australian Standard Time (*)
| +9:30 sast South Australian Standard Time
| |+10:00 east East Australian Standard Time (*)
| | +10:30 cadt Central Australian Daylight Time (*)
| | +10:30 sadt South Australian Daylight Time (*)
| | |+11:00 eadt East Australian Daylight Time (*)
| | | |+12:00 nzt New Zealand Time
| | | | |
| +9:00|+10:00|+11:00|+12:00|
Also, we have recently received a request to add
+12:00 nzst New Zealand Standard Time (*)
+13:00 nzdt New Zealand Daylight Time (*)
but haven't added them to our table yet.
Hope this helps. Gary
***** end *****
-------
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From: t...@tik.vtt.fi (Tor Lillqvist)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: timezones
Date: 29 Dec 92 12:47:13 GMT
Organization: Technical Research Centre of Finland, Laboratory for Information
Processing (VTT/TIK)
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In-reply-to: elsn4000@bronto.zrz.tu-berlin.de's message of 29 Dec 1992 12:07:56 GMT
>>>>> On 29 Dec 1992 12:07:56 GMT, elsn4...@bronto.zrz.tu-berlin.de (Frank Elsner)
said:
> In article <BzzyL0...@newsserver.technet.sg> swi...@solomon.technet.sg
> (SW International) writes:
>>2) I'm looking for a list of *official* timezones, as valid in mail
>> and/or elsewhere. Is there a ftp-site for this?
> Here is what I have on this topic, hope it helps.
> -0100 WAT West Africa Time
> -0200 AT Azores Time
> ...
You should definitely *not* use exotic time zone names such as these.
The official words from the Hosts Requirements RFC:
There is a strong trend towards the use of numeric timezone
indicators, and implementations SHOULD use numeric timezones
instead of timezone names. However, all implementations MUST
accept either notation. If timezone names are used, they MUST
be exactly as defined in RFC-822.
And the timezone names in RFC822 are:
zone = "UT" / "GMT" ; Universal Time
; North American : UT
/ "EST" / "EDT" ; Eastern: - 5/ - 4
/ "CST" / "CDT" ; Central: - 6/ - 5
/ "MST" / "MDT" ; Mountain: - 7/ - 6
/ "PST" / "PDT" ; Pacific: - 8/ - 7
/ 1ALPHA ; Military: Z = UT;
; A:-1; (J not used)
; M:-12; N:+1; Y:+12
/ ( ("+" / "-") 4DIGIT ) ; Local differential
; hours+min. (HHMM)
Time zone may be indicated in several ways. "UT" is Univer-
sal Time (formerly called "Greenwich Mean Time"); "GMT" is per-
mitted as a reference to Universal Time. The military standard
uses a single character for each zone. "Z" is Universal Time.
"A" indicates one hour earlier, and "M" indicates 12 hours ear-
lier; "N" is one hour later, and "Y" is 12 hours later. The
letter "J" is not used. The other remaining two forms are taken
from ANSI standard X3.51-1975. One allows explicit indication of
the amount of offset from UT; the other uses common 3-character
But note that the Hosts Requeirements say:
The military time zones are specified incorrectly in RFC-822:
they count the wrong way from UT (the signs are reversed). As
a result, military time zones in RFC-822 headers carry no
information.
--
Tor Lillqvist,
working, but not speaking, for the Technical Research Centre of Finland,
Laboratory for Information Processing (VTT/TIK).
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucla-cs!twinsun!eggert
From: egg...@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert)
Subject: Re: timezones
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t...@tik.vtt.fi (Tor Lillqvist) writes:
>> elsn4...@bronto.zrz.tu-berlin.de (Frank Elsner) writes:
>> -0100 WAT West Africa Time
>> -0200 AT Azores Time
>You should definitely *not* use exotic time zone names such as these.
Especially since that ``exotic'' list is wrong;
don't trust those old lists taken from astrology books!
E.g. west Africa is really +0000, and the Azores are +0000 (-0100 in summer).
(My source is the 1989 US Naval Observatory listing.)
For Internet mail and news, Lillqvist is right: you should use numeric
time zone offsets, and you must never generate alphabetic names like
`JST' or `MEZ' that aren't in the RFCs. Numeric time zone offsets are
better than time zone names in general, but if your application must
use time zone names, you should get better sources than old astrology
textbooks or ancient email from Multics maintainers. I recommend
Arthur David Olson's time zone package, which you can FTP from
elsie.nci.nih.gov in pub/tz92c.tar.Z.