> erik@vulcain:~ > TZ=IDIOT date > Wed Jan 19 19:54:58 IDIOT 2000 The above is a concise summary of the problem: if TZ is invalid, date (tzset, really) sets the time zone to UTC, but uses the invalid name, which confuses users. In 2002, Andrew Suffield sent a patch to this bug report that claims to fix the problem. I've reviewed and tested it, and it does seem to work fine. I've attached is a dpatch that should drop into debian/patches cleanly (and be applied if added to 00list) that incorporates Andrew's patch, and also adds a test case (time/tst-tzset.c), which tests for this bug. Would glibc upstream find the patch acceptable? Should it be forwarded to them? This problem is small, but quite annoying when you hit it. It would be nice to have it fixed. I'm unsure of the proper procedure of forwardning patches to glibc upstream, so I think it would be better if someone with experience would do it, or else some hand-holding and preview reviewing if Debian's glibc maintainers would prefer for me to do it.
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tzset-say-utc-for-unknown-tzname.dpatch
Description: application/shellscript