Unidentified subject!

Manavendra Thakur mthakur at alum.mit.edu
Wed Jul 26 17:37:01 UTC 2000


Hi Firoz,

> I need help with getting data/information files for certain zones on
> NeXTSTEP

I may not be able to help directly, but I may be able to help save you some
effort.  (I used to work for NeXT and indeed was responsible for putting out
a patch or two for the NEXTSTEP timezone files.)

NeXT did not modify the timezone files or zic sources in any material
fashion.

So if you're having trouble running zic on a input zoneinfo file, it's
probably because the version of zic on your NEXTSTEP system is sufficiently
old that it doesn't understand whatever format your input zoneinfo files are
in.

For example, you write:

> They are not the standard GMT+5, GMT+6, etc. files, but need it
> for half hour changes.  I guess GMT+55 (for GMT + 5.30).

I would suggest that you look at the man page for your version of zic and
see whether this gives you sufficient information about the input format it
expects.

Alternatively, you may wish search the TZ archives on elsie.nci.nih.gov for
examples of really really old input zoneinfo files (circa 1992 for NEXTSTEP
3.x and circa 1990 for NEXTSTEP 1.0 and 2.x), which you can then modify and
run through your version of zic.

> I would really appreciate it if someone could send me step by step
> instructions on how to do this, or send me the data files themselves after
> running zic or whatever. I tried to run zic, but came up with all kinds of
> compiler and data errors.

I don't think running zic itself is a major issue (assuming you're following
the instructions in its man page).

Rather, I think the format of the input zoneinfo files is what's biting you,
and all you have to do is find the right format for these files (as
described above), which you can then modify.

If you need more specific help, then probably you will need to explain
further what you are trying to achieve with your zoneinfo files.  In other
words, NEXTSTEP already provides zoneinfo data files.  So which timezone do
you want to change, and what changes do you want to make within that
timezone file?

Manavendra Thakur





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