>    LOG:  database system was shut down at 2004-05-25 15:15:44 GMT-12
> 
> For comparison, 7.4.1 on the same system says:
> 
>    LOG:  database system was shut down at 2004-05-25 16:03:43 NZST

> Can we keep the zic database convention unchanged but change the display 
> format in the logs to be consistent with the SQL conventions?

I think what was meant is, that if it displays GMT+-something it should
convert the sign. Is that zic filename exposed anywhere else ?

It is common practice that + is East and - is West, no ?

Andreas

Tue, 25 May 2004 09:59:13 +0200
"Zeugswetter Andreas SB SD" <ZeugswetterA@spardat.at>
Re: Timezone fun (bugs and a request)
Zeugswetter Andreas SB SD wrote:
>>   LOG:  database system was shut down at 2004-05-25 15:15:44 GMT-12
>>
>>For comparison, 7.4.1 on the same system says:
>>
>>   LOG:  database system was shut down at 2004-05-25 16:03:43 NZST
> 
> 
>>Can we keep the zic database convention unchanged but change the display 
>>format in the logs to be consistent with the SQL conventions?
> 
> 
> I think what was meant is, that if it displays GMT+-something it should
> convert the sign. Is that zic filename exposed anywhere else ?
> 
> It is common practice that + is East and - is West, no ?

Yes, exactly. Regardless of how the timezone is handled internally, 
showing 12-hours-east as GMT-12 in logs is horribly confusing.

-O

Tue, 25 May 2004 23:21:52 +1200
Oliver Jowett <oliver@opencloud.com>
Re: Timezone fun (bugs and a request)
"Zeugswetter Andreas SB SD" <ZeugswetterA@spardat.at> writes:
> It is common practice that + is East and - is West, no ?

The SQL standard says that.  The POSIX standard says the opposite.
Most of the Unixen I'm familiar with follow POSIX when choosing time
zone names.

The zic database is in itself a de facto standard (it's used verbatim
in glibc, I believe, and on several non-glibc platforms).  So I'm
rather hesitant to make any unilateral changes in it.  I would like to
think that we will be able to "just drop in" any updates that occur from
time to time in the zone database files.  Politicians being what they
are, you can be certain there will be changes to track.

Also, it's worth pointing out here that falling back to Etc/GMT+/-n
is intended to be just that, a last-ditch fallback that won't be seen
in normal practice.  We still need to do some more work on
identify_system_timezone() to make that happen outside North America,
but I would like to think that average users will never see these zones
except by deliberate selection.  So I think it's not worth getting
worked up about what the sign convention is.

			regards, tom lane

Tue, 25 May 2004 10:05:40 -0400
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Re: Timezone fun (bugs and a request) 
I wrote:
> Also, it's worth pointing out here that falling back to Etc/GMT+/-n
> is intended to be just that, a last-ditch fallback that won't be seen
> in normal practice.  We still need to do some more work on
> identify_system_timezone() to make that happen outside North America,
> but I would like to think that average users will never see these zones
> except by deliberate selection.

BTW, as of an hour or so ago, identify_system_timezone is a bit smarter
than before.  Please try it and see if it gets it right on your machine.

			regards, tom lane

Tue, 25 May 2004 15:01:24 -0400
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Re: Timezone fun (bugs and a request) 
On Tue, May 25, 2004 at 03:01:24PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> I wrote:
> > Also, it's worth pointing out here that falling back to Etc/GMT+/-n
> > is intended to be just that, a last-ditch fallback that won't be seen
> > in normal practice.  We still need to do some more work on
> > identify_system_timezone() to make that happen outside North America,
> > but I would like to think that average users will never see these zones
> > except by deliberate selection.
> 
> BTW, as of an hour or so ago, identify_system_timezone is a bit smarter
> than before.  Please try it and see if it gets it right on your machine.

Works here perfectly, thank you.  I changed the system date to see if it
worked on DST too, and it does.

I can also attest that it takes a very short time to find the correct
timezone, and this is a very slow machine (Intel Celeron 533).

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
"No renuncies a nada. No te aferres a nada."


Tue, 25 May 2004 16:03:30 -0400
Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@dcc.uchile.cl>
Re: Timezone fun (bugs and a request)

Oliver Jowett <oliver@opencloud.com> writes:

> Yes, exactly. Regardless of how the timezone is handled internally, showing
> 12-hours-east as GMT-12 in logs is horribly confusing.

Well, uh, you could always just pretend it was really 12-hours-west...
That doesn't help people in other time zones though :)

-- 
greg


25 May 2004 16:04:13 -0400
Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu>
Re: Timezone fun (bugs and a request)
Tom Lane wrote:

> BTW, as of an hour or so ago, identify_system_timezone is a bit smarter
> than before.  Please try it and see if it gets it right on your machine.

Looks good:

LOG:  database system was shut down at 2004-05-26 12:43:55 NZST

test=# select now();
              now
------------------------------
  2004-05-26 12:44:30.00082+12
(1 row)

-O

Wed, 26 May 2004 12:47:08 +1200
Oliver Jowett <oliver@opencloud.com>
Re: Timezone fun (bugs and a request)