table of contents
TZSET(3) | Linux Programmer's Manual | TZSET(3) |
NAME¶
tzset - initialize time conversion informationSYNOPSIS¶
#include <time.h> void tzset (void); extern char *tzname[2]
DESCRIPTION¶
The tzset() function initializes the tzname variable from the TZ environment variable. This function is automatically called by the other time conversion functions that depend on the time zone. If the TZ variable does not appear in the environment, the tzname variable is initialized with the best approximation of local wall clock time, as specified by the tzfile(5)-format file localtime found in the system timezone directory (see below). (One also often sees /etc/localtime used here, a symlink to the right file in the system timezone directory.) If the TZ variable does appear in the environment but its value is NULL or its value cannot be interpreted using any of the formats specified below, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is used. The value of TZ can be one of three formats. The first format is used when there is no daylight saving time in the local time zone:std offset
The std string specifies the name of the time zone and must be three or
more alphabetic characters. The offset string immediately follows
std and specifies the time value to be added to the local time to get
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The offset is positive if the local
time zone is west of the Prime Meridian and negative if it is east. The hour
must be between 0 and 24, and the minutes and seconds 0 and 59.
The second format is used when there is daylight saving time:
std offset dst
[offset],start[/time],end[/time]
There are no spaces in the specification. The initial std and
offset specify the standard time zone, as described above. The
dst string and offset specify the name and offset for the
corresponding daylight savings time zone. If the offset is omitted, it
defaults to one hour ahead of standard time.
The start field specifies when daylight savings time goes into effect and
the end field specifies when the change is made back to standard time.
These fields may have the following formats:
- Jn
- This specifies the Julian day with n between 1 and 365. February 29 is never counted even in leap years.
- n
- This specifies the Julian day with n between 1 and 365. February 29 is counted in leap years.
- Mm.w.d
- This specifies day d (0 <= d <= 6) of week w (1 <= w <= 5) of month m (1 <= m <= 12). Week 1 is the first week in which day d occurs and week 5 is the last week in which day d occurs. Day 0 is a Sunday.
:[filespec]
If the file specification filespec is omitted, the time zone information
is read from the file localtime in the system timezone directory, which
nowadays usually is /usr/share/zoneinfo. This file is in
tzfile(5) format. If filespec is given, it specifies another
tzfile(5)-format file to read the time zone information from. If
filespec does not begin with a `/', the file specification is relative
to the system timezone directory.
FILES¶
The system time zone directory used depends on the (g)libc version. Libc4 and libc5 use /usr/lib/zoneinfo, and, since libc-5.4.6, when this doesn't work, will try /usr/share/zoneinfo. Glibc2 will use the environment variable TZDIR, when that exists. Its default depends on how it was installed, but normally is /usr/share/zoneinfo. This timezone directory contains the fileslocaltime local time zone file posixrules rules for POSIX-style TZ'sOften /etc/localtime is a symlink to the file localtime or to the correct time zone file in the system time zone directory.
CONFORMING TO¶
SVID 3, POSIX, BSD 4.3SEE ALSO¶
date(1), gettimeofday(2), time(2), ctime(3), getenv(3), tzfile(5)July 2, 1993 | BSD |