ADC Home > Reference Library > Reference > Mac OS X > Mac OS X Man Pages

 

This document is a Mac OS X manual page. Manual pages are a command-line technology for providing documentation. You can view these manual pages locally using the man(1) command. These manual pages come from many different sources, and thus, have a variety of writing styles.

For more information about the manual page format, see the manual page for manpages(5).



ZIC(8)                    BSD System Manager's Manual                   ZIC(8)

NAME
     zic -- timezone compiler

SYNOPSIS
     zic [--version] [-Dsv] [-d directory] [-g group] [-L leapsecondfilename] [-l localtime] [-m mode]
         [-p posixrules] [-u user] [-y command] [filename ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The zic utility reads text from the file(s) named on the command line and creates the time conversion
     information files specified in this input.  If a filename is -, the standard input is read.

     The following options are available:

     -D      Do not automatically create directories.  If the input file(s) specify an output file in a
             directory which does not already exist, the default behavior is to attempt to create the direc-tory. directory.
             tory.  If -D is specified, zic will instead error out immediately.

     -d directory
             Create time conversion information files in the named directory rather than in the standard
             directory named below.

     -g group
             After creating each output file, change its group ownership to the specified group (which can
             be either a name or a numeric group ID).

     -L leapsecondfilename
             Read leap second information from the file with the given name.  If this option is not used, no
             leap second information appears in output files.

     -l timezone
             Use the given time zone as local time.  The zic utility will act as if the input contained a
             link line of the form

                   Link    timezone                localtime
             (Note that this action has no effect on FreeBSD, since the local time zone is specified in
             /etc/localtime and not /usr/share/zoneinfo/localtime.)

     -m mode
             After creating each output file, change its access mode to mode.  Both numeric and alphabetic
             modes are accepted (see chmod(1)).

     -p timezone
             Use the given time zone's rules when handling POSIX-format time zone environment variables.
             The zic utility will act as if the input contained a link line of the form

                   Link    timezone                posixrules

     -s      Limit time values stored in output files to values that are the same whether they're taken to
             be signed or unsigned.  You can use this option to generate SVVS-compatible files.

     -u user
             After creating each output file, change its owner to user (which can be either a name or a
             numeric user ID).

     -v      Complain if a year that appears in a data file is outside the range of years representable by
             time(3) values.

     --version
             Output version information and exit.

     -y command
             Use the given command rather than yearistype when checking year types (see below).

     Input lines are made up of fields.  Fields are separated from one another by any number of white space
     characters.  Leading and trailing white space on input lines is ignored.  An unquoted sharp character
     (#) in the input introduces a comment which extends to the end of the line the sharp character appears
     on.  White space characters and sharp characters may be enclosed in double quotes (") if they're to be
     used as part of a field.  Any line that is blank (after comment stripping) is ignored.  Non-blank lines
     are expected to be of one of three types: rule lines, zone lines, and link lines.

     A rule line has the form:
           Rule NAME FROM TO   TYPE IN   ON        AT   SAVE LETTER/S
     For example:
           Rule US   1967 1973 -    Apr  lastSun   2:00 1:00 D

     The fields that make up a rule line are:

           NAME      Give the (arbitrary) name of the set of rules this rule is part of.

           FROM      Give the first year in which the rule applies.  Any integer year can be supplied; the
                     Gregorian calendar is assumed.  The word minimum (or an abbreviation) means the minimum
                     year representable as an integer.  The word maximum (or an abbreviation) means the max-imum maximum
                     imum year representable as an integer.  Rules can describe times that are not repre-sentable representable
                     sentable as time values, with the unrepresentable times ignored; this allows rules to
                     be portable among hosts with differing time value types.

           TO        Give the final year in which the rule applies.  In addition to minimum and maximum (as
                     above), the word only (or an abbreviation) may be used to repeat the value of the FROM
                     field.

           TYPE      Give the type of year in which the rule applies.  If TYPE is - then the rule applies in
                     all years between FROM and TO inclusive.  If TYPE is something else, then zic executes
                     the command yearistype year type to check the type of a year: an exit status of zero is
                     taken to mean that the year is of the given type; an exit status of one is taken to
                     mean that the year is not of the given type.

           IN        Name the month in which the rule takes effect.  Month names may be abbreviated.

           ON        Give the day on which the rule takes effect.  Recognized forms include:

                           5        the fifth of the month
                           lastSun  the last Sunday in the month
                           lastMon  the last Monday in the month
                           Sun>=8   first Sunday on or after the eighth
                           Sun<=25  last Sunday on or before the 25th

                     Names of days of the week may be abbreviated or spelled out in full.  Note that there
                     must be no spaces within the ON field.

           AT        Give the time of day at which the rule takes effect.  Recognized forms include:

                           2        time in hours
                           2:00     time in hours and minutes
                           15:00    24-hour format time (for times after noon)
                           1:28:14  time in hours, minutes, and seconds

                     where hour 0 is midnight at the start of the day, and hour 24 is midnight at the end of
                     the day.  Any of these forms may be followed by the letter `w' if the given time is
                     local ``wall clock'' time, `s' if the given time is local ``standard'' time, or `u' (or
                     `g' or `z') if the given time is universal time; in the absence of an indicator, wall
                     clock time is assumed.

           SAVE      Give the amount of time to be added to local standard time when the rule is in effect.
                     This field has the same format as the AT field (although, of course, the `w' and `s'
                     suffixes are not used).

           LETTER/S  Give the ``variable part'' (for example, the ``S'' or ``D'' in ``EST'' or ``EDT'') of
                     time zone abbreviations to be used when this rule is in effect.  If this field is -,
                     the variable part is null.

     A zone line has the form:
           Zone NAME GMTOFF    RULES/SAVE     FORMAT    [UNTIL]
     For example:
           Zone Australia/Adelaide  9:30 Aus  CST  1971 Oct 31 2:00
     The fields that make up a zone line are:

     NAME    The name of the time zone.  This is the name used in creating the time conversion information
             file for the zone.

     GMTOFF  The amount of time to add to UTC to get standard time in this zone.  This field has the same
             format as the AT and SAVE fields of rule lines; begin the field with a minus sign if time must
             be subtracted from UTC.

     RULES/SAVE
             The name of the rule(s) that apply in the time zone or, alternately, an amount of time to add
             to local standard time.  If this field is - then standard time always applies in the time zone.

     FORMAT  The format for time zone abbreviations in this time zone.  The pair of characters %s is used to
             show where the ``variable part'' of the time zone abbreviation goes.  Alternately, a slash (/)
             separates standard and daylight abbreviations.

     UNTIL   The time at which the UTC offset or the rule(s) change for a location.  It is specified as a
             year, a month, a day, and a time of day.  If this is specified, the time zone information is
             generated from the given UTC offset and rule change until the time specified.  The month, day,
             and time of day have the same format as the IN, ON, and AT columns of a rule; trailing columns
             can be omitted, and default to the earliest possible value for the missing columns.

             The next line must be a ``continuation'' line; this has the same form as a zone line except
             that the string ``Zone'' and the name are omitted, as the continuation line will place informa-
             tion starting at the time specified as the UNTIL field in the previous line in the file used by
             the previous line.  Continuation lines may contain an UNTIL field, just as zone lines do, indi-cating indicating
             cating that the next line is a further continuation.

     A link line has the form
           Link LINK-FROM LINK-TO
     For example:
           Link Europe/Istanbul     Asia/Istanbul
     The LINK-FROM field should appear as the NAME field in some zone line; the LINK-TO field is used as an
     alternate name for that zone.

     Except for continuation lines, lines may appear in any order in the input.

     Lines in the file that describes leap seconds have the following form:
           Leap YEAR MONTH     DAY  HH:MM:SS  CORR R/S
     For example:
           Leap 1974 Dec  31   23:59:60  +    S
     The YEAR, MONTH, DAY, and HH:MM:SS fields tell when the leap second happened.  The CORR field should be
     ``+'' if a second was added or ``-'' if a second was skipped.  The R/S field should be (an abbreviation
     of) ``Stationary'' if the leap second time given by the other fields should be interpreted as UTC or
     (an abbreviation of) ``Rolling'' if the leap second time given by the other fields should be inter-preted interpreted
     preted as local wall clock time.

NOTE
     For areas with more than two types of local time, you may need to use local standard time in the AT
     field of the earliest transition time's rule to ensure that the earliest transition time recorded in
     the compiled file is correct.

FILES
     /usr/share/zoneinfo  standard directory used for created files

SEE ALSO
     ctime(3), tzfile(5), zdump(8)

BSD                              June 20, 2004                             BSD

Did this document help you?
Yes: Tell us what works for you.
It’s good, but: Report typos, inaccuracies, and so forth.
It wasn’t helpful: Tell us what would have helped.