Re: Idea for handling timezones

[tomas]

On Sat, Apr 03, 2021 at 08:36:06AM +0800, Shironeko wrote:
> On Fri, 2021-04-02 at 13:34 +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 07:40:47AM +0000, shironeko wrote:
> > 
> > Hm. Just a mumbling from the peanut gallery: isn't the timezone a property
> > of the timestamp itself?
> > 
> > Specifying the timezone for the whole file is progress, but imagine the
> > following scenario: I have a big file which is more or less a diary of
> > things which happened, with lots of timestamps thrown in (also LOGBOOK
> > entries).
> > 
> > If I move through timezones, only some of the timestamps are "elsewhere".
> > 
> 
> There are separate hacks for that, see
> https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/13463/specify-timezone-in-org-date-format

Thanks for the pointer [1].

Yes, Org is a bit scared to touch time format, and in a way, I do
understand that.

I'm unhappy myself with Org timestamps, but given how conflict-laden
the topic is, I opted for keeping my local hacks and dealing with
some fallout on version changes. Not optimal, but I haven't better
ideas myself currently.

> > Switching "the whole file" to reflect the "current" timezone [...]

> This is why timezones need to be specified in the tz database format, it does
> all the right things and makes sure the converted timestamp corresponds to the
> same instant. 

I don't understand what you mean by "the tz database format" in this
context. What I meant is the '%z' information (e.g. -0400) instead
of (or in addition to) the '%Z' one (e.g. EDT), in the sense of
`format-time-string'.

But perhaps we mean the same.

> > Of course, convincing Org to extend the timestamp format and regexps
> > might be a tough call :-)
> 
> This is exactly the problem I'm trying to avoid.

Yes, I get the "design tension" there. I don't have better ideas.
A greater flexibility in timestamp representation would have seduced
me; a file-global setting... not so much.

Still, I wish you good luck :-)

Cheers

[1] BTW I hate SX. Theycl've come up with yet another of those cookie
   tortures to take revenge on the users for some mild privacy protection
   laws. Of course I don't want any cookies. You @#&$s don't even have
   to ask: you @#*&%$ can infer that from the fact that my browser doesn't
   accept cookies in the first place!  You so-called web programmers
   manage to elicit feelings in me I'm less-than-proud of.

 - t

signature.asc
Description: Digital signature