Time in @TM

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2007 at 05:03:07PM -0400, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> Quoting Rodgers Hemer (Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:55:22 -0700):
> > SCO 5.0.7 w/ MP5,  fP5.0.14
> >
> > I have one system that does not return the correct time when using
> > @tm.  The latest maintenance pack for SCO has been installed and the
> > operating system displays the correct time from the date command.
> > However, @TM is showing the time to be what it would have been before
> > the March 1 DST change.  I can find no difference in the
> > configuration of filePro between this errant system and others to
> > which I have access.
> >
> > Does anyone have any suggestions as to what is causing this
> > aberration and/or how to correct it?
> 
> The cause is the change in rules as to when DST starts and ends.

Note, Ken, in the quote above, that Rodgers says that his date(1)
command gives the proper results.

So it's not necessarily clear what time it is.  :-)

I'll expand John Esak's comment: check not only user .profiles for TZ
setting, but also /etc/profile and any menus inbetween the user and the
code -- putting in 'show "@"<getenv("TZ")' in the code is really not
beyond the pale here...

and a reminder to all coders:

 =====
The datum which identifies a point in time is a TIMESTAMP.

A TIMESTAMP is not complete unless it includes a timezone indicator.
 =====

If you're on linux, the zdump command you use to test that you've fixed
your problem illustrates why this is quite nicely.

And, of course, filepro does not make it easy to capture a system
timestamp inclusive of the timezone indicator with the standard system
facilities (system dummy's, edits, etc).  fP isn't alone in this, of
course, but it's not the only place where the system-provided facilites
don't go far enough, requiring you to write lots and lots of code (the
continuing inability to have changeable fields in browse lookups, which
would have saved me about 2200 lines of original code, are the most
obvious example that come to mind).

</rant>  :-}

Cheers,
- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274