Parsing /etc/TIMEZONE

Dennis L. Mumaugh seismo!cuuxb!dlm
Thu Dec 18 12:57:09 UTC 1986


Yes, it is true that my parse routine does use standard IO.  Also
it is simple minded about "shell".  It doesn't know about quoting
or shell escapes: thus the new expanded TZ will break as there is
a  semi-colon  in  the  TZ string.  Oh well, what do you want for
free?  BTW, the init parser for SystemV Release 3.1 is  not  very
smart either.

I do like the idea of a single place for establishing the TZ  for
a system.  It makes it very easy for new administrators.

Another problem with a routine to read and parse /etc/TIMEZONE is
what  does  one  do  for  non-ATT shells (c shell and others) the
setting of TZ in  the  environment  differs.  That's  why  having
/etc/init  set  things  up  is good.  That guarentees a "standard
environment".  It is true someone could diddle with it, but I  am
more concerned with naive users than others.



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