Date: Wed, 31 Aug 94 10:42:42 EDT
From: peprbv AT cfa0 DOT harvard DOT edu (Bob Babcock)
To: davis AT amy DOT tch DOT HARVARD DOT EDU ()
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Re: New time routines
Reply-To: babcock AT cfa DOT harvard DOT edu

> Forgive me for being naive. I am probably missing something very fundamental
> but I simply want the time routines to return the same value that the time
> and date commands give at the DOS prompt--- independent of environment
> variable settings and zoneinfo files.  No other DOS compiler needs it and no
> how hard you try, DOS is not Unix and will never be POSIX compliant.

I'd like this also, but things get more complicated when you connect machines
together.  For example, I have a routine from NCSA which will set my PC clock
from a unix host on the Ethernet.  If I don't have a TZ variable set, it
defaults, as I recall, to PST8DST which is wrong by 3 hours.  An isolated PC
can probably get away with TZ=GMT0, but perhaps not if you want to run one of
the programs which displays a properly illuminated globe (GEOCLOCK under DOS,
PMGLOBE under OS/2).

I have not followed the TZ stuff very closely.  I think the behavior you
would like is that a program which ignores time zone problems would do
everything in local time: files newly created would get time stamps agreeing
with the DOS clock and if the program printed the date and time, these would
agree with the DOS clock.