Re: Bug in fat-fs code: file date/time wrong

Joe Zbiciak (jzbiciak@dal.asp.ti.com)
Mon, 15 Nov 1999 03:11:21 -0600


Peter Samuelson [peter@wire.cadcamlab.org] wrote:
| [Joe Zbiciak]
| > This illustrates the power of a GMT-based system.
|
| No argument here. Why do you think I have been using the term "legacy
| system"? (:

:-)

What's ironic is that the Unix Way probably predates the system we're
calling "Legacy".

| > From what I understand, FAT stores dates in local time. If you do
| > not set a timezone at boot, then local time is GMT/UTC.
|
| So where does the kernel FAT code get its timezone from? hwclock?

In 2.2.x, it looks at sys_tz, which is set by settimeofday(). I
believe sys_tz defaults to UTC. (It's initialized to "0, 0", which (if
I'm understanding correctly) means zero minuteswest and zero dsttime.)

So, when I say "set a timezone at boot", I'm referring to something
in the rc scripts doing a settimeofday to set it. On my RH6.0 box,
this is done by hwclock (as you suggest) from /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.

| > > If you want complete interoperability, you will need to define a
| > > non-DST-able time zone and manually change it twice a year.
| > Ick. That'll break all the native Unix stuff. Now the file I
| > created during DST on the ext2 partition will show a different time
| > when I'm not in DST.
|
| This is true. Which of the five alternate solutions I listed above
| appeals to you the most? I don't like any of them except (e). Or do
| you have a sixth?

Sure: Make a filesystem driver for Win32 which reads ext2, and move
your whole system onto ext2. :-)

Regards,

--Joe

-- 
-- Joseph Zbiciak             |  "Never worry about the theory        --
-- j-zbiciak1@ti.com          |   as long as the machinery            --
-- #include <std_disc.h>      |   does what it is supposed to do."    --
-- Texas Instruments, Dallas  |                        -- Heinlein    --

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