Subject: timezone confusion
To: None <tech-userlevel@netbsd.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 04/12/2006 17:59:15
Okay, I'm confused.

I'm in North American Eastern time, which is what I've always called
and seen called -0400 in the summer and -0500 in the winter.  Now, for
example:

% date ; date -u
Wed Apr 12 18:04:17 EDT 2006
Wed Apr 12 22:04:17 UTC 2006
% 

But:

% env TZ=Etc/GMT-4 date ; env TZ=Etc/GMT+4 date
Thu Apr 13 02:04:25 GMT-4 2006
Wed Apr 12 18:04:25 GMT+4 2006
% 

That is, what I think of as UTC-0400 corresponds to Etc/GMT+4, not
Etc/GMT-4.

What's wrong here?  Am I wrong to interpret Etc/GMT-4 as being
UTC-0400, or am I wrong to think that I'm in UTC-0400 when I'm four
hours west of Greenwich, or are the file signs backwards?

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B