etcetera patch

[Jesper Nørgaard]

Okay, that was much better. It is still complicated matter, but at least it
was so clear that I got encouraged to make another suggestion for
how to formulate it. I thought that the essence of "what many people
expect" got lost in the examples. How about this:

# We use POSIX-style signs in the Zone names and the output abbreviations,
# even though this is the opposite of what many people expect.
# POSIX has positive signs west of Greenwich, while most people expect
# positive signs east of Greenwich. For example, TZ='Etc/GMT+4' corresponds 
# to 4 hours behind UTC (i.e. west of Greenwich) which many people would 
# expect to see as GMT-4. In Draft 5 of the next version of POSIX, the angle 
# bracket notation (which is not yet supported by the tz code) allows for 
# TZ='<GMT-4>+4'; if you also want abbreviations that conform to ISO 8601 
# you can use TZ='<-0400>+4'. Thus the expected offset is kept within the
# angle bracket (and not used for calculation) while the POSIX sign is kept
# outside the angle bracked (and used for calculation).

Regards,

Jesper Nørgaard Welen
Email: jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx	
Programador/Analista
CIMMYT  -  Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo
Dirección: CIMMYT Int. c/o Jesper Nørgaard
Km. 45, Carretera México-Veracruz
El Batán
Texcoco, Edo. de México
CP 56130   MEXICO
Tel.:	+52 (5) 58-04-20-04  ext. 1374
Fax:	+52 (5) 58-04-75-58
Tel. Casa:   53-10-05-95  ó  53-10-97-78
CIMMYT home page: 
 http://cimmyt.cgiar.org
Check out my free program World Time Explorer:
http://timezone50.homepage.com

----------
From: 	Paul Eggert[SMTP:eggert at twinsun.com]
Sent: 	Jueves 15 de Febrero de 2001 11:28
To: 	jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx
Cc: 	tz at elsie.nci.nih.gov
Subject: 	Re: etcetera patch

> Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 22:21:35 -0600
> From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jesper_N=F8rgaard?= <jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx>
> Resent-From: tz at elsie.nci.nih.gov
> 
> "internal-style signedness" and "zic style"?? Reading the below utterings
> just makes me bounce of the wall and scratch my head (but not at the same
> time :-). 

OK, here's a draft rewording that I hope doesn't leave as many marks
on your wall (and your head :-).

# We use POSIX-style signs in the Zone names and the output abbreviations,
# even though this is the opposite of what many people expect.
# For example, TZ='Etc/GMT+4' corresponds to 4 hours behind UTC
# (i.e. west of Greenwich); it is equivalent to TZ='GMT+4',
# except that it uses the abbreviation "GMT+4"
# whereas TZ='GMT+4' uses the misleading abbreviation "GMT".
# TZ='Etc/GMT+4' is equivalent to the TZ='<GMT+4>+4' of Draft 5 of the next
# version of POSIX, but the angle-bracket notation is not yet
# supported by the tz code.  With the Draft 5 notation, people who
# prefer the traditional sign in abbreviations (where positive numbers
# are east of Greenwich) can use TZ='<GMT-4>+4'; if they also want
# abbreviations that conform to ISO 8601 they can use TZ='<-0400>+4'.