IXTIMEZONE
Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
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NAME
ixtimezone - allows Unix timezone-handling to be used with ixemul.library
SYNOPSIS
ixtimezone
option
DESCRIPTION
Ixtimezone
uses the
TZ
environment variable to determine the offset in seconds between Universal
Coordinated Time (aka Greenwich Mean Time) and the local timezone. This
offset is stored in a field in the ixemul library base. The offset is also
written to the environment variable
IXGMTOFFSET.
The
ixemul.library
is now able to correctly determine the local time and
GMT.
The
TZ
environment variable should contain the name of one of the files in the
/etc/zoneinfo
directory. For example, I live in the Netherlands, so my
TZ
is set to
Europe/Amsterdam.
The
TZ
environment variable
must
be set before using
ixtimezone,
otherwise
ixtimezone
wouldn't know what the local timezone is, and therefore it wouldn't be able
to compute the offset from GMT.
You should put
ixtimezone
in your
startup-sequence
to ensure that it is called every time you start your computer. After
ixtimezone
has been executed, you can set
TZ
to whatever value you want. For example, to see what time it is in Japan,
set
TZ
to
Japan
and type
ixtimezone
-test.
But don't use any other option, as the other options set the GMT offset based on the
current
TZ
value, which is
Japan!
Note that you need to call this tool at least twice a year, when
Daylight Saving Time comes in effect and when it ends.
OPTIONS
- -test
-
Print the local time and GMT (according to
ixemul.library)
to standard output.
Use this to test the current settings. It doesn't affect anything else.
- -get-offset
-
Calculate the difference between local time and GMT in seconds. The
resulting offset is stored in the library base of
ixemul.library
and is also written to the global environment variable
IXGMTOFFSET.
If the
IXGMTOFFSET
environment variable didn't exist or the offset stored in the original
environment variable differed from the new offset (which happens when
Daylight Saving Time starts or ends), then a copy of
IXGMTOFFSET
is written to the
ENVARC:
directory.
Since
ixemul.library
reads the
IXGMTOFFSET
environment variable just after it is loaded into memory, it is
sufficient to use
ixtimezone
only when Daylight Saving Time starts or ends. Provided, of course, that
the contents of the
ENVARC:
directory is copied to
ENV:
before
ixemul.library
is loaded.
- -check-dst
-
This option does the same as
-get-offset,
but it also detects if Daylight Saving Time has started or ended. If so, it
automatically sets the Amiga clock to the correct time. So you no longer
need to change the time manually twice a year.
- -patch-resource
-
This option does the same as
-get-offset,
but it also patches the
battclock.resource.
This is most useful if you also run the Unix operating system on your Amiga
(NetBSD or Linux, for example). Unix requires that the clock is set to
Greenwich Mean Time, while the Amiga requires that the clock is set to
local time. By patching the
battclock.resource
one can set the Amiga clock, which is managed by the
battclock.resource,
to GMT time. The patch ensures that whenever the Amiga wants to
obtain the time, the GMT time is converted into local time. There is also
no longer any need to change the Amiga clock when Daylight Saving Time starts or
ends, since the battery clock is set to GMT.
ixtimezone
detects if you try to patch the
battclock.resource
a second time. It won't patch the resource again, but it will check if the
current GMT offset is still the same as when the patch was originally
installed. If it has changed, the
battclock.resource
offset will also be changed.
- -remove-patch
-
Removes the
battclock.resource
patch. It checks if the patch was really installed before removing it.
This option doesn't do anything else.
FILE
/etc/zoneinfo standard directory used for created files
HISTORY
The original idea for the
-patch-resource
option came from the
unixclock
utility written by Geert Uytterhoeven.
unixclock
is available on Aminet.
SEE ALSO
The time functions, the timezone databases and the
zic(8)
utility for compiling the timezone files in the
/etc/zoneinfo
directory are available from
elsie.nci.nih.gov
in the
/pub
directory.
AUTHOR
Hans Verkuil
(hans@wyst.hobby.nl)
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- OPTIONS
-
- FILE
-
- HISTORY
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- AUTHOR
-
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Time: 15:52:48 GMT, January 15, 2023