Re: date does not recognise ULAT timezone to calculate UTC date

[Bob Proulx]

address@hidden wrote:
> Running the command date on our server in Mongolia gives
>   $ date
>   Wed Jun 19 18:13:14 ULAT 2013
> However entering a date with the ULAT timezone to calculate the UTC
> date of an event in the past gives an error
>   $ date -u --date="25 May 2013 20:13 ULAT"
>   date: invalid date `25 May 2013 20:13 ULAT'

Using the "ULAT" locale specific name is the problem.  Using the short
locale specific abbreviations has always been problematic.  I am not
sure why the parser is getting confused by ULAT in this particular
case.  Perhaps someone else will look more deeply at it.

I always recommend using one of the standard formats such as
-R,--rfc-2822 format which is unambiguous.

  $ env TZ=Asia/Ulan_Bator date -R -d '25 May 2013 20:13'
  Sat, 25 May 2013 20:13:00 +0800

  $ date -u -d 'Sat, 25 May 2013 20:13:00 +0800'
  Sat May 25 12:13:00 UTC 2013

  $ date -R -u -d 'Sat, 25 May 2013 20:13:00 +0800'
  Sat, 25 May 2013 12:13:00 +0000

Using the RFC2822 format will yield more reliable results.

Of course you would like the locale specific timezone name to always
work for you.  But it can't.  Therefore the only answer I can offer is
to avoid the problem by avoiding using those names in date parsing
routines.  The date parser code is a best-effort attempt and makes
lots of mistakes.  Better to avoid tickling the problematic areas.

> Using the same format (ie taking the local timezone from a date
> command) works on our servers in other timezones such as CET, CEST,
> or SGT works perfectly.

Locale specific names are ambiguous and work some places and do not
work other places.  Since those are legacy there isn't anything that
can be done to improve it other than using an unambiguous format.

This problem is discussed in some detail in the FAQ:

  
http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/coreutils-faq.html#The-date-command-is-not-working-right_002e

Bob

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