[Python-Dev] tzset (original) (raw)

Stuart Bishop zen@shangri-la.dropbear.id.au
Thu, 20 Mar 2003 16:01:33 +1100

On Monday, March 17, 2003, at 01:17 PM, Tim Peters wrote:

[Guido]

... I don't know if it makes sense to provide tzset() on Windows; from Tim's description it doesn't sound likely. I wouldn't object if someone else wanted to do the work (which includes documenting it well enough to cut off an endless stream of obvious questions). The Windows tzset is weak but maybe usable for some people. For example, time zone names must be exactly 3 characters, and you can't tell the Windows tzset when daylight time begins or ends: it uses US rules no matter what the time zone. The native Win32 SetTimeZoneInformation() doesn't suffer these idiocies, but I'm not sure whether calling that affects the Unixish tzname (etc) variables. "Doing the work" also means figuring out all that stuff.

I've submitted an update to SF: http://www.python.org/sf/706707

This version should only build time.tzset if it accepts the TZ environment variable formats documented at: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/xbd_chap08.html So it shouldn't build under Windows.

The last alternative would be to expose time.tzset if it exists at all, and the test suite would simply check to make sure it doesn't raise an exception. This would leave behaviour totally up to the OS, and the corresponding lack of documentation in the Python library reference.

-- Stuart Bishop <zen@shangri-la.dropbear.id.au> http://shangri-la.dropbear.id.au/