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

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 21:44:07 GMT, August 05, 2022