Subj : Re TZUTC
To   : mark lewis
From : Maurice Kinal
Date : Sun Mar 10 2019 16:24:58

Hey mark!

 ml> don't know where you got that from but it is not totally correct

From you in a prior messages, the latest being to Ozz stating, and I qoute;

 ml> while this is true, fidonet uses the TZUTC control line to store
 ml> the UTC offset so there is no confusion like you describe...
 ml> numbers without a sign are positive and the only sign used is
 ml> the '-' which easily indicates a negative...

The above is very similar to prior statements you have made about the TZUTC 
control line.

 ml> it will be a number at some point to be able to do the math
 ml> needed...

An example usage would great.  Something like this that I would use for the 
message I am replying to;

  date --date="10 Mar 19  10:25:00 -0400" = Sun Mar 10 14:25:00 UTC 2019

However in that case it doesn't show the conversion to a number(s), which I 
would assume to be unixseconds, which is indeed a number representing seconds.

  date --date="10 Mar 19  10:25:00 -0400" +%s = 1552227900
  date --date="@1552227900" = Sun Mar 10 14:25:00 UTC 2019

I could compilcate the above by writing a program to use strftime() but I doubt 
it would be better than the above examples using coreutils' date.

Every available source I have seen never bothers to correct for utc offsets, 
nevermind displaying the offset so that a reader can determine that the 
displayed message originated in a different timezone.  If you know different 
I'd appreciate hearing about it but from everything I have seen thus far the 
TZUTC does absoultely nothing and is wrong given the lack of the + character 
where applicable.

Life is good,
Maurice

.... Don't cry for me I have vi.
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