TZSET(3) Linux Programmers Manual TZSET(3)
NAME
tzset, tzname, timezone, daylight - initialize time conversion informa
tion
SYNOPSIS
#include
void tzset (void);
extern char *tzname[2];
extern long timezone;
extern int daylight;
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
tzset(): _POSIX_C_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE
tzname: _POSIX_C_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE
timezone: _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE
daylight: _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE
DESCRIPTION
The tzset() function initializes the tzname variable from the TZ envi
ronment variable. This function is automatically called by the other
time conversion functions that depend on the time zone. In a SysV-like
environment it will also set the variables timezone (seconds West of
GMT) and daylight (0 if this time zone does not have any daylight sav
ing time rules, non-zero if there is a time during the year when day
light saving time applies).
If the TZ variable does not appear in the environment, the tzname vari
able is initialized with the best approximation of local wall clock
time, as specified by the tzfile(5)-format file localtime found in the
system timezone directory (see below). (One also often sees
/etc/localtime used here, a symlink to the right file in the system
timezone directory.)
If the TZ variable does appear in the environment but its value is
empty or its value cannot be interpreted using any of the formats spec
ified below, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is used.
The value of TZ can be one of three formats. The first format is used
when there is no daylight saving time in the local time zone:
std offset
The std string specifies the name of the time zone and must be three or
more alphabetic characters. The offset string immediately follows std
and specifies the time value to be added to the local time to get Coor
dinated Universal Time (UTC). The offset is positive if the local time
zone is west of the Prime Meridian and negative if it is east. The
hour must be between 0 and 24, and the minutes and seconds 0 and 59.
The second format is used when there is daylight saving time:
std offset dst [offset],start[/time],end[/time]
There are no spaces in the specification. The initial std and offset
specify the standard time zone, as described above. The dst string and
offset specify the name and offset for the corresponding daylight sav
ing time zone. If the offset is omitted, it default to one hour ahead
of standard time.
The start field specifies when daylight saving time goes into effect
and the end field specifies when the change is made back to standard
time. These fields may have the following formats:
Jn This specifies the Julian day with n between 1 and 365. Febru
ary 29 is never counted even in leap years.
n This specifies the Julian day with n between 1 and 365. Febru
ary 29 is counted in leap years.
Mm.w.d This specifies day d (0 <= d <= 6) of week w (1 <= w <= 5) of
month m (1 <= m <= 12). Week 1 is the first week in which day d
occurs and week 5 is the last week in which day d occurs. Day 0
is a Sunday.
The time fields specify when, in the local time currently in effect,
the change to the other time occurs. If omitted, the default is
02:00:00.
Here is an example for New Zealand, where the standard time (NZST) is
12 hours ahead of UTC, and daylight saving time (NZDT), 13 hours ahead
of UTC, runs from the first Sunday in October to the third Sunday in
March, and the changeovers happen at the default time of 02:00:00:
TZ="NZST-12.00:00NZDT-13:00:00,M10.1.0,M3.3.0"
The third format specifies that the time zone information should be
read from a file:
:[filespec]
If the file specification filespec is omitted, the time zone informa
tion is read from the file localtime in the system timezone directory,
which nowadays usually is /usr/share/zoneinfo. This file is in
tzfile(5) format. If filespec is given, it specifies another
tzfile(5)-format file to read the time zone information from. If file
spec does not begin with a '/', the file specification is relative to
the system timezone directory.
Heres an example, once more for New Zealand:
TZ=":Pacific/Auckland"
FILES
The system time zone directory used depends on the (g)libc version.
Libc4 and libc5 use /usr/lib/zoneinfo, and, since libc-5.4.6, when this
doesnt work, will try /usr/share/zoneinfo. Glibc2 will use the envi
ronment variable TZDIR, when that exists. Its default depends on how
it was installed, but normally is /usr/share/zoneinfo.
This timezone directory contains the files
localtime local time zone file
posixrules rules for POSIX-style TZs
Often /etc/localtime is a symlink to the file localtime or to the cor
rect time zone file in the system time zone directory.
CONFORMING TO
SVr4, POSIX.1-2001, 4.3BSD.
NOTES
Note that the variable daylight does not indicate that daylight saving
time applies right now. It used to give the number of some algorithm
(see the variable tz_dsttime in gettimeofday(2)). It has been obsolete
for many years but is required by SUSv2.
4.3BSD had a function char *timezone(zone, dst) that returned the name
of the time zone corresponding to its first argument (minutes West of
GMT). If the second argument was 0, the standard name was used, other
wise the daylight saving time version.
SEE ALSO
date(1), gettimeofday(2), time(2), ctime(3), getenv(3), tzfile(5)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.05 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
2007-07-26 TZSET(3)
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