Resolved Time-zones

In the Readme file of a Windows binary release of a Linux program I'm using (XMLTV.exe) occurs this phrase:- "xmltv.exe will try and guess a timezone. This usually works fine. If it doesn't, you can set a TZ variable just like on Unix." I assume that what's meant by that is to set an Environment Variable for 'TZ' in Win XP. But how? I've just wasted 2 hours (!) trying to crack this, and failed.

"...just like on Unix" seems to mandate the use of three-letter codes for the "standard" and the "daylight saving" variants of one's native time-zone, and nowhere (despite endless googling and wikipedia'ing) have I found any listing of exclusively *three* -letter tz codes. From some of what I've read I get the impression that these three-letter codes are pre-loaded into unix-type systems and are specific to such systems (but I may have got that wrong). All official code-listings I've been able to find contain varying numbers of letters (between 2 and 4). I live in Finland and the codes I have so far found for that are EST and for daylight saving time EEST.

Does anyone know enough about this to guide me please?

 

Try EET (Eastern European Time), but surely this should be handled properly if you already have the correct zone set up in XP? At the very least XMLTV should be able to adjust automatically for daylight savings time.

There's no time zone list restricted to only 3 letter abbreviations as far as I know. The best I can find is Time zone abbreviations.

 

@wildfire
Thanks for the reply.

You're quite right. I ought perhaps to have explained though that my problem stems from the fact that I'm grabbing schedules from two sources which are in different time-zones, and at present the one to the West is out of synch by one hour with all its programmes' timings. I don't know whether setting a TZ variable (for the zone I'm in) will cure this or not but I'm trying to cover every eventuality.

 

From what I've briefly researched in the last 30 minutes you're probably going to be stuck with the problem, best to let xmltv use the system timezone and live with any errors.

I'll keep on looking and come back if I find anything though.

 

Ok from what I can gather (and I could be wrong) the sources should only be supplying the data in UTC (GMT) and it's down to your system to adjust for local time.

ie, even if you collected data from several different sources in different TZ's this should not be an issue. An error @ source perhaps?

 

Well, from what appears in the Command Prompt window this isn't the case with the grabber I'm using - though it could be for some other grabbers.

In fact - though I'm not sure what I was doing before which caused it to behave otherwise - it has now righted itself! (I think I was trying - wrongly - to make it advance its Swedish programme timings by one hour and instead managed to get it to set them back to Swedish time! I should've left well alone). In the command window it now says "GMT + 3 hours" (previously it said "+2 ").

I could have saved myself an awful lot of trouble if I hadn't interfered! Ah well...

Thanks anyway for your help.

 

It's not the grabber that's the issue, it's the data that's been grabbed, currently it's 18:50 local time here and 17:50 UTC.

Now wherever you are local time will vary but UTC time is 17:50. Possibly a temporary glitch with the data source but since it's resolved no need to worry.