date problem

[Heiko Schlichting]

Hi,

I read FAQ 24 ("The date command is not working right") but the following
problem is not what I expect on the day after daylight saving time starts.
All the outputs are done at epoch 1238364060, timezone Europe/Berlin using
coreutils 7.1. This is one minute after midnight on the day after day light
saving starts.

    $ date -d now +"%Y%m%d"
    20090330

    $ date -d yesterday +"%Y%m%d"
    20090328

Problem! I expect this to be 20090329.

More details:
    $ date -d now
    Mon Mar 30 00:01:00 CEST 2009

    $ date -d yesterday
    Sat Mar 28 23:01:00 CET 2009

Problem! This is 24 hours subtracted but not what is expected as "yesterday
at the same time of the day".

Effect: Logfile rotation failed or overwrite logfiles of the day before as 

    date -d yesterday +"%Y%m%d"

outputs the wrong (unexpected) date.

Heiko

Heiko Schlichting          Freie Universität Berlin
address@hidden     Zentraleinrichtung für Datenverarbeitung (ZEDAT)
Telefon +49 30 838-54327   Fabeckstraße 32
Telefax +49 30 838454327   14195 Berlin