Publication: FTS-4008
+ Revision: 2
+ Title: Time zone information (TZUTC)
+ Author: FTSC
+ Issue Date: 16 May 2003
+ Review Date: 16 May 2005
+ Obsoletes: FTS-0010.001
+ ----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Contents:
+ 1. Introduction
+ 2. Scope
+ 3. Current practice
+ 4. Control paragraph specification
+ 5. Time zone table
+ 6. Examples
+ A. References
+ B. History
+ ----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Status of this document
+ -----------------------
This document is a Fidonet Technical Standard (FTS), issued by the
+ FTSC for the benefit of the Fidonet community.
This document is based on the FSP-1001 proposal by Odinn Sorensen,
+ 2:236/77.
+
+ This document is released to the public domain, and may be used,
+ copied or modified for any purpose whatsoever.
+ 1. Introduction
+ ---------------
Current practice in FidoNet is to transmit message times in local
+ time. This document specifies a standard for transmission of time
+ zone information in FidoNet messages, in the form of a control
+ paragraph (also known as a "control line" or "kludge") named
+ TZUTC.
+ 2. Scope
+ --------
This standard is specified for the transmission of FidoNet messages
+ in any form where time zone information is not integrated into the
+ transport format, specifically any form where the information would
+ be lost if not transmitted in a control paragraph, eg. Type 2 packed
+ messages. [1]
+ 3. Current practice
+ -------------------
Some control paragraphs already exist to specify the time zone of
+ messages, notably "TZUTC" and "TZUTCINFO". From observations
+ of
+ these control paragraphs in actual messages, TZUTC and TZUTCINFO are
+ identical except for the name. TZUTCINFO is probably named after
+ the JAM message base's [2] subfield of the same name.
This document adopts the TZUTC control paragraph because is the
+ shortest ("TZUTC" vs "TZUTCINFO"). However, software
+ implementations should be prepared to read and interpret the
+ TZUTCINFO control paragraph as well.
The TZUTC control paragraph is inserted before the message body
+ upon initial message creation, or export from a format containing
+ time zone information, such as the aforementioned JAM message base.
+ 4. Control paragraph specification
+ -----------------------------
Messages which conform to this specification must add the following
+ control paragraph:
^aTZUTC: <current offset from UTC>
+Where ^a is ASCII 1, 01h.
+ The offset has the format <[-]hhmm>, where hhmm is the number of
+ hours and minutes, zero-padded to two digits each, that local time
+ is offset from UTC. If local time is WEST of UTC, then the offset
+ is NEGATIVE. See the table below for typical offsets.
Note that the hh in a time zone offset is not limited to a maximum
+ of 12. This is because the International Date Line does not run
+ exactly along the boundary between zone -1200 and +1200. The
+ minutes part is 00 for most time zones.
All four digits must be present. If the offset is negative, there
+ must be a minus ('-', ASCII 45, 2Dh) in front of the offset.
Implementations must NOT put a plus ('+', ASCII 43, 2Bh) in front of
+ the offset for positive numbers, but robust implementations should
+ be prepared to find (and ignore) a plus if it exists.
If local time changes as a result of, for example, daylight savings
+ time, then the offset in the TZUTC control paragraph should change
+ to reflect this.
+ 5. Time zone table
+ ------------------
This table gives examples of typical time zones.
+ -1000 Alaska-Hawaii Standard Time (United States)
+ -0900 Hawaii Daylight Time
+ -0800 Pacific Standard Time
+ -0700 Pacific Daylight Time
+ -0700 Mountain Standard Time
+ -0600 Mountain Daylight Time
+ -0600 Central Standard Time
+ -0500 Central Daylight Time
+ -0500 Eastern Standard Time
+ -0400 Eastern Daylight Time
+ -0400 Atlantic Standard Time
+ -0330 Newfoundland Standard Time
+ -0300 Atlantic Daylight Time
+ -0100 West Africa Time
+ 0000 Universal Time Coordinated (UTC)
+ 0000 Greenwich Mean Time
+ 0100 Central European Time
+ 0100 British Summer Time
+ 0200 Central European Summer Time
+ 0200 Eastern European Time
+ 0800 Australian Western Standard Time
+ 0800 China Coast Time
+ 0900 Japan Standard Time
+ 0900 Australian Western Daylight Time
+ 0930 Australian Central Standard Time
+ 1000 Australian Eastern Standard Time
+ 1030 Australian Central Daylight Time
+ 1100 Australian Eastern Daylight Time
+ 1200 New Zealand Standard Time
+ 1300 New Zealand Daylight Time
+ 6. Examples
+ -----------
^aTZUTC: 0000
+ ^aTZUTC: 0200
+ ^aTZUTC: -0700
+ A. References
+ -------------
[1] "A Basic FidoNet(r) Technical Standard Revision 16", Randy Bush.
+ September 1995.
[2] "The JAM message base proposal", Joaquim Homrighausen, Andrew
+ Milner, Mats Birch and Mats Wallin. July 1993.
+ B. History
+ ----------
Rev.1, 20030409: First release (revised from FSP-1001 by FTSC)
+ Rev.2, 20030516: Corrected status; clarified Section 2 on insertion
+ position and export practice; fixed terminology.
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+