[sheflug] Help with timezones (values of TZ) and summer (daylightsavings) time.

[Adam Funk <a.funk [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm working on a script to record some radio shows broadcast on the
east coast of the USA and I want the filenames to contain the local
time when the recording started.  The script worked fine during the
winter with the following line:

   TIMESTAMP=`TZ=EST date +%Y%m%d-%H%M-%Z`

but I wanted to modify it for the summer.  I thought the code for east
coast daylight savings time was EDT, but that doesn't work:


$ date
Tue Apr 18 14:07:18 BST 2006

$ TZ=EST date
Tue Apr 18 08:07:22 EST 2006

$ TZ=EDT date
Tue Apr 18 13:07:26 EDT 2006


What is the TZ code for eastern daylight savings time, and where can I
get a definitive list of the abbreviations?

How can I get my script to determine automatically whether standard or
summer time applies?  (My computer automatically changes to summer
time in the UK, so I think it has some relevant software that I don't
know how to find or use.)

-- 
Thanks,
Adam


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