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TZSET(3)		    Library Functions Manual		      TZSET(3)

NAME
       tzset --	initialize time	conversion information

LIBRARY
       Standard	C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
       #include	<time.h>

       void
       tzset(void);

DESCRIPTION
       The  tzset()  function  initializes time	conversion information used by
       the library routine localtime(3).  The environment variable  TZ	speci-
       fies how	this is	done.

       If TZ does not appear in	the environment, the best available approxima-
       tion  to	 local	wall  clock time, as specified by the tzfile(5)-format
       file /etc/localtime is used.

       If TZ appears in	the environment	but its	value is a null	string,	 Coor-
       dinated Universal Time (UTC) is used (without leap second correction).

       If  TZ  appears	in  the	 environment and its value begins with a colon
       (`:'),  the  rest  of  its  value  is  used  as	 a   pathname	of   a
       tzfile(5)-format	 file  from which to read the time conversion informa-
       tion.  If the first character of	the pathname is	a slash	 (`/')	it  is
       used as an absolute pathname; otherwise,	it is used as a	pathname rela-
       tive to the system time conversion information directory.

       If its value does not begin with	a colon, it is first used as the path-
       name of a file (as described above) from	which to read the time conver-
       sion  information.   If that file cannot	be read, the value is then in-
       terpreted as a direct specification (the	format is described below)  of
       the time	conversion information.

       If the TZ environment variable does not specify a tzfile(5)-format file
       and cannot be interpreted as a direct specification, UTC	is used.

SPECIFICATION FORMAT
       When  TZ	is used	directly as a specification of the time	conversion in-
       formation, it must have the following syntax (spaces inserted for clar-
       ity):

	     std offset	[dst [offset] [, rule]]

       Where:

	     std and dst  Three	or more	bytes that are the designation for the
			  standard (std) or summer (dst) time zone.  Only  std
			  is  required;	 if  dst  is missing, then summer time
			  does not apply in this locale.  Upper	and  lowercase
			  letters  are explicitly allowed.  Any	characters ex-
			  cept a leading colon (`:'), digits, comma (`,'), mi-
			  nus (`-'), plus (`+'), and ASCII NUL are allowed.

	     offset	  Indicates the	value one must add to the  local  time
			  to arrive at Coordinated Universal Time.  The	offset
			  has the form:

				hh[:mm[:ss]]

			  The minutes (mm) and seconds (ss) are	optional.  The
			  hour	(hh)  is  required  and	may be a single	digit.
			  The offset following std is required.	 If no	offset
			  follows  dst,	 summer	time is	assumed	to be one hour
			  ahead	of standard time.  One or more digits  may  be
			  used;	 the  value is always interpreted as a decimal
			  number.  The hour must be between zero and  24,  and
			  the  minutes	(and seconds) -- if present -- between
			  zero and 59.	If preceded by a (`-') the  time  zone
			  shall	 be  east  of the Prime	Meridian; otherwise it
			  shall	be west	(which may be indicated	by an optional
			  preceding (`+')).

	     rule	  Indicates when to change to  and  back  from	summer
			  time.	 The rule has the form:

				date/time,date/time

			  where	 the first date	describes when the change from
			  standard to summer time occurs and the  second  date
			  describes  when  the change back happens.  Each time
			  field	describes when,	in  current  local  time,  the
			  change to the	other time is made.

			  The format of	date is	one of the following:

			  J n	   The	Julian	day  n	(1 <= n	<= 365).  Leap
				   days	are not	counted; that is, in all years
				   -- including	leap years -- February	28  is
				   day 59 and March 1 is day 60.  It is	impos-
				   sible to explicitly refer to	the occasional
				   February 29.

			  n	   The	zero-based Julian day (0 <= n <= 365 )
				   .  Leap days	are counted, and it is	possi-
				   ble to refer	to February 29.

			  M m.n.d  The	d'th  day  (0  <= d <= 6) of week n of
				   month m of the year (1 <= n <= 5), (1 <=  m
				   <=  12), where week 5 means "the last d day
				   in month m" which may occur in  either  the
				   fourth  or  the fifth week).	 Week 1	is the
				   first week in which the  d'th  day  occurs.
				   Day zero is Sunday.

				   The	time has the same format as offset ex-
				   cept	that no	leading	sign (`-') or (`+') is
				   allowed.   The  default,  if	 time  is  not
				   given, is 02:00:00.

			  If  no  rule is present in the TZ specification, the
			  rules	 specified  by	 the   tzfile(5)-format	  file
			  posixrules in	the system time	conversion information
			  directory  are  used,	 with  the standard and	summer
			  time offsets from UTC	replaced by those specified by
			  the offset values in TZ.

       For compatibility with System V Release 3.1, a semicolon	(`;')  may  be
       used to separate	the rule from the rest of the specification.

FILES
       /etc/localtime		       local time zone file
       /usr/share/zoneinfo	       time zone directory
       /usr/share/zoneinfo/posixrules  rules for POSIX-style TZ's
       /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/GMT     for UTC leap seconds

       If  the	file  /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC does not exist, UTC leap seconds
       are loaded from /usr/share/zoneinfo/posixrules.

SEE ALSO
       date(1),	gettimeofday(2), ctime(3), getenv(3), time(3), tzfile(5)

HISTORY
       The tzset() function first appeared in 4.4BSD.

FreeBSD	14.0			 March 6, 2023			      TZSET(3)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tzset&manpath=FreeBSD+14.0-RELEASE+and+Ports>

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