[tz] Questions on tzname and tm_zone

[Patrik Lantto]

Dear all,

I have a few questions regarding how the tzdb code handles tzname and tm_zone:


  *   The define HAVE_TZNAME have three different "settings"; 0 if tzname is not supported, 1 to support tzname defined by the system library and 2 to support and define tzname. In the code though, when defining tzname it also adds the value of TZ_TIME_T which reduces the options. Basically, if time_tz is defined to another datatype that time_t, tzname cannot be defined by the system library since setting HAVE_TZNAME to 1 would still define tzname (around line 195 of localtime.c). Is there a reason for this behaviour (which is also similar for USG_COMPAT)? In my platform we define a new 64 bit datatype, but would still need tzname as defined by the system library.
  *   In case of an invalid timezone, the behaviour of tzname and tm_zone behaves differently; tzname would be set to WILDABBR (which is possible to define), but if localtime is called tm_zone will be set to "UTC" while if gmtime is called, tm_zone is set to "-00" and if offtime is called (with a non-0 offset) tm_zone is WILDABBR. It seems somewhat inconsistent, so is this by design?
  *   The way tzname is updated (in settzname) in settzname is that it first set tzname[0] and tzname[1] to either WILDABBR or UTC, and then possibly update with the correct names. While tzname is not considered thread safe, this way writing to tzname twice means that even call to tzset with the same timezone could affect other threads reading tzname. Not a huge risk, but still possible. Is this something to consider in the implementation?
  *   Since tzname is not thread safe, and due to the way tm_zone is handled it is somewhat hard to detect if a TZ string is valid or not. Is there a recommended way to detect an invalid string?

Best regards,

Patrik Lantto

--
Patrik Lantto - patrik.lantto at wisi.se - +46 13 210918

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