What are the "weird" timezones in the default tzdata package?

Lockywolf · 12-18-2015, 04:40 AM

For many years I used to set up my timezone to be my local "Europe/Moscow".

However, at some point I decided to have a look at the timezones in more detail and I found that apart from the "normal" timezones like "$Continent/#City", there are huge groups whose meaning I cannot understand.

Namely, I have "posix/$Continent/$City" and "right/$Continent/$City" timezones.

So actually, shall I set up my timezone to be "posix/Europe/Moscow" instead?

What's the general purpose of "right/*"? Are all the rest considered "left" or "wrong"?

MensaWater · 12-18-2015, 01:25 PM

The post at http://askubuntu.com/questions/34925...oneinfo-folder has a nice explanation:

Quote:

posix and right:

Two different versions are provided: - The "posix" version is based on the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). - The "right" version is based on the International Atomic Time (TAI), and it includes the leap seconds.

Etc:

These entries are mostly present for historical reasons, so that people in areas not otherwise covered by the tz files could "zic -l" to a time zone that was right for their area. These days, the tz files cover almost all the inhabited world, and the only practical need now for the entries that are not on UTC are for ships at sea that cannot use POSIX TZ settings.

jefro · 12-18-2015, 03:47 PM

More info.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ai.../au-aix-posix/