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FTSC                             FIDONET TECHNICAL STANDARDS COMMITTEE
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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
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Contents:
              1. Introduction
              2. Scope
              3. Current practice
              4. Control paragraph specification
              5. Time zone table
              6. Examples
              A. References
              B. History
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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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