1README for the tz distribution 2 3"Where do I set the hands of the clock?" -- Les Tremayne as The King 4"Oh that--you can set them any place you want." -- Frank Baxter as The Scientist 5 (from the Bell System film "About Time") 6 7The Time Zone Database (called tz, tzdb or zoneinfo) contains code and 8data that represent the history of local time for many representative 9locations around the globe. It is updated periodically to reflect 10changes made by political bodies to time zone boundaries, UTC offsets, 11and daylight-saving rules. 12 13See <https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tz-link.html> or the 14file tz-link.html for how to acquire the code and data. Once acquired, 15read the comments in the file 'Makefile' and make any changes needed 16to make things right for your system, especially if you are using some 17platform other than GNU/Linux. Then run the following commands, 18substituting your desired installation directory for "$HOME/tzdir": 19 20 make TOPDIR=$HOME/tzdir install 21 $HOME/tzdir/usr/bin/zdump -v America/Los_Angeles 22 23See the file tz-how-to.html for examples of how to read the data files. 24 25This database of historical local time information has several goals: 26 27 * Provide a compendium of data about the history of civil time that 28 is useful even if not 100% accurate. 29 30 * Give an idea of the variety of local time rules that have existed 31 in the past and thus may be expected in the future. 32 33 * Test the generality of the local time rule description system. 34 35The information in the time zone data files is by no means authoritative; 36fixes and enhancements are welcome. Please see the file CONTRIBUTING 37for details. 38 39Thanks to these Time Zone Caballeros who've made major contributions to the 40time conversion package: Keith Bostic; Bob Devine; Paul Eggert; Robert Elz; 41Guy Harris; Mark Horton; John Mackin; and Bradley White. Thanks also to 42Michael Bloom, Art Neilson, Stephen Prince, John Sovereign, and Frank Wales 43for testing work, and to Gwillim Law for checking local mean time data. 44Thanks in particular to Arthur David Olson, the project's founder and first 45maintainer, to whom the time zone community owes the greatest debt of all. 46None of them are responsible for remaining errors. 47 48----- 49 50This file is in the public domain, so clarified as of 2009-05-17 by 51Arthur David Olson. The other files in this distribution are either 52public domain or BSD licensed; see the file LICENSE for details. 53