On Wed 28 Aug 2019 at 14:08:47 (-0400), Michael Stone wrote:
On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 12:25:32PM -0500, David Wright wrote:
> On Mon 12 Aug 2019 at 08:38:47 (-0400), Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > The first one is the /etc/timezone file, which as you say, is a
> > simple text file that a (root) user can edit. I believe this is the
> > backward-compatibility one.
>
> And that's the one I find useful, in that a lot of applications honour
> a value for TZ, which needs to be the text version. I always have a
> link to /etc/timezone as ~/.timezone, and TZ is set to its value in
> my startup files, which makes it easy to run a session in a
> contradictory timezone if I wish.
>
> > The second one is the /etc/localtime symbolic link, which needs to point
> > to an existing binary time zone data file in /usr/share/zoneinfo. The
> > symbolic link can be re-pointed by hand; the binary data file should not
> > be edited by hand.
>
> I assume the system is interested in this one because it needs the
> actual rules and not just the name of the timezone. Otherwise the
> system wouldn't be able to junp the clocks at the appropriate times.
You're making a distinction that doesn't exist. The text value in TZ or
/etc/timezone should match a filename in /usr/share/zoneinfo. If it
doesn't then you'll get incons[is]tent dates.
Well, yes, I'm assuming that users are playing fair and stick to
using filenames that exist and not, say, TZ=Texas/Paris. Further
down my post (2 back) it said "… the string UTC
(the alternatives are simply the names of the files in
/usr/share/zoneinfo, including subdirectories)." Is that the
distinction you meant?
So I'm not sure whether that was what you were trying to say;