Thread: Time zone abbreviations and calendars

Considering the time zone abbreviations that are accepted on input, I find
a couple of bogosities:

WDT    +09:00    West Australian Daylight Time
AWST    +08:00    Australia Western Standard Time
WADT    +08:00    West Australian Daylight Time
WST    +08:00    West Australian Standard Time
WAST    +07:00    West Australian Standard Time

At least two of these are evidently wrong.  Who knows which?

FWT    +02:00    French Winter Time
FST    +01:00    French Summer Time

These are mixed up.  (I doubt these abbreviations even need to exist.
France uses Central European Time.)

I also have some doubts about the terminology offered in the "History of
Units" section.  It says

Julian day    = invented by Scaliger, counts days from 1 January 4713 BC
Julian date    = invented by Caesar, predecessor of modern calendar

However, my sources say that the first is the "Julian date" and the second
is simply the Julian calendar.  Ideas?

-- 
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net

Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> Considering the time zone abbreviations that are accepted on input, I find
> a couple of bogosities:

Presumably we can get some local knowledge on those items from list
members.  I believe that Thomas created the TZ tables on the basis of
including everything he could find mentioned in the zic database, so
there very probably are some entries in there that are not in current
use.  I don't see any need to remove such entries, unless they actively
conflict with more-current usage.

> I also have some doubts about the terminology offered in the "History of
> Units" section.  It says
> Julian day    = invented by Scaliger, counts days from 1 January 4713 BC
> Julian date    = invented by Caesar, predecessor of modern calendar
> However, my sources say that the first is the "Julian date" and the second
> is simply the Julian calendar.  Ideas?

I believe you are correct on both points.
        regards, tom lane

> Considering the time zone abbreviations that are accepted on input, I find
> a couple of bogosities:
>
> WDT    +09:00    West Australian Daylight Time
> AWST    +08:00    Australia Western Standard Time
> WADT    +08:00    West Australian Daylight Time
> WST    +08:00    West Australian Standard Time
> WAST    +07:00    West Australian Standard Time

Well, I'm West Australian, and the only one there that I recognise is WST.
WA does not have daylight savings time...

Chris