The following bug has been logged online:
Bug reference: 2062
Logged by: David Begley
Email address: d.begley@uws.edu.au
PostgreSQL version: 8.1
Operating system: Windows
Description: Timezone unrecognised
Details:
Sorry this is probably going to be a "PITA" issue.
PostgreSQL documentation (and basic testing with "psql") indicates that for
the Australian eastern coast, the timezones "AEST" (UTC+10) and "AESST"
(UTC+11) are recognised; unfortunately the far more popular "AEDT" (UTC+11,
"Australian Eastern Daylight-Saving Time") is not recognised.
I don't know where the idea that "AESST" is popular in Australia originated
- a Google for "aesst +site:.au" versus "aedt +site:.au" shows 432 hits for
"AESST" and over 1.3 million for "AEDT". Even limiting the search to
".gov.au" is strongly in favour of "AEDT" (93 versus over 38,000).
Again, a Google on past versions of PostgreSQL (you'll need to use Google's
cache for this):
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:KMjjE-jc8MQJ:www.postgresql.dk/docs/7.2/i
nteractive/timezones.html+postgresql+aedt&hl=en
shows that the request for "AEDT" has existed since at least 2002 and
PostgreSQL 7.2.
I know it's not a major issue for anyone else but it sure makes things
easier for those of us who actually _use_ and _live_ within those timezones
(especially given that I'd never seen/heard of "AESST" 'til PostgreSQL) - if
it didn't matter, then recognition of the various timezone strings wouldn't
exist in PostgreSQL at all.
Before you ask, there exists no formal legislated standard for timezone
names or short-names within Australia (at least, not for use outside the
legislation itself defining when daylight savings starts/ends), it's all
governed by "local practice" (hence, look at the Google numbers above); the
politicians are too busy screwing around with whether or not to have
daylight savings at all and when to start or finish daylight savings.
One last pitch in favour of "AEDT" (for that manner, any/all corrected
Australian timezones):
http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia-13time
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/daysavtm.shtml
Even the people operating Australia's contribution to UTC use the term,
"Australian Eastern Daylight Time" (see the note about the upcoming leap
second):
http://www.measurement.gov.au/index.cfm?event=object.showContent&objectID=9B
D77455-BCD6-81AC-1BF1C5D980A48E4D
Could we please have "AEDT" finally added in the next release?
Thanks... :-)
