Re: cygcheck's understanding of TZ

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-use-the-mailinglist-please@cygwin.com>]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 09:24:45AM +0200, Denis Excoffier wrote:
>
>On 2011-06-09 23:06, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>
>> We're not changing anything.  Having the date there is useful.
>
>I (OP) need to use TZ=Europe/Monaco (or similar, or
>with an absolute name) to make my applications work,
>including date(1).
>
>Currently the `Current System Time' line is:
>- incorrect at least in my (legitimate) use of TZ,
>- not fully adequate for reference purposes since
>   it does not specify the time zone.
>
>It therefore deserves improvement.
>
>But since it seems difficult to make it correct due to specific
>constraints (windows program), feel free not to modify it.  Users like
>me will have to 'export TZ=UTC' before 'cygcheck -s'.  Not difficult.

When I said the date was useful I was obviously referring to it being
useful in the context for which "cygcheck -s" is used - reporting
configuration info to the cygwin mailing list.  That's why "cygcheck -s"
exists.  In that context, knowing, generally, when the command was run
on the reporter's system is useful.

>Or change cygcheck's specification for the better: use
>UTC date instead, since printing UTC date does not
>depend/rely on TZ:
>Current System Time (UTC): Thu Jun 09 07:07:14 2011
>
>>Again: you shouldn't use "cygcheck -s" as a method to find the system
>>date.
>
>Sorry, next time i'll use 'alias foobar' instead of 'alias cygdate'.

Actually an alias does nothing to illustrate this issue.  Just cutting
and pasting the output from cygcheck -s would have been enough to show
what you're talking about.  Unless you are reporting a problem with
aliases, providing an alias implies that you actually intend to use the
alias for some purpose.

But, in any event, we still have no idea (since you haven't provided
details) why you find it so crucial for cygcheck to report the date with
pinpoint accuracy but if this is required for your purposes then you
should "feel free" to provide a patch to cygcheck.cc.  If you don't want
to provide a patch then you could also investigate modifying the
cygcheck output via sed to match what you require.

cgf

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple