Re^3: Impact of U.S. Daylight Savings Time changes in 2007 on Perl distribution/code

[Jim]

As if to demonstrate how cool and up-to-date the Perl DateTime project is, it's principal architect and maintainer, Dave Rolsky, announced on the perl.datetime newsgroup the release today of DateTime-TimeZone-0.58, which is based on version 2007a of the Olson tz database, which was also just released today.

Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:36:51 -0600 (CST)
To: datetime <[e-mail]>
Subject: ANNOUNCE: DateTime::TimeZone 0.58
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
From: [e-mail] (Dave Rolsky)

0.58     2007-01-08

- This release is based on version 2007a of the Olson database.



-dave

When I posted this yesterday, I know I first checked the FTP archive to confirm the current version and the files were for 2006p. Today, the files are for version 2007a. This implies that Dave has automated the detection of new versions of the Olson tz database and the consequent rebuilding and redistribution of DateTime::TimeZone. Slick!

Jim

[autarch]

Well, the detection isn't automated, but pulling down the new Olson db and building a new version of DT::TZ is.

For detection, I'm subscribed to the Olson db discussion list, where new versions are announced. When a new version is announced, I run a script to update DT::TZ, run the tests, and upload to CPAN. It's pretty straightforward.

[Anonymous Monk]

As a sysadmin who is examining a large number of Unix systems (around 1500) and other systems across a medium size enterprise, to determine what Unix patches need to be applied for the OS and Java, what steps would need to be taken for perl to be updated appropriately with the latest Date/Time and Olson TZ database? Are there tools in the perl world for this to be done on a wide scale (many hosts) with efficiency (as little manual repetition as possible)? Please reply to this forum. Directions to more appropriate forums or resources are welcome. thanks. -Jim

[Bill_N1VUX]

The typical perl install might not include DateTime::TimeZone, it's not in Core library. If your users are using it, they need to update it. If you've included it in a local standard site_perl library, you need to update it.

As described above and in parallel threads Daylight Saving, Daylight Savings, most Perl installs will be fine once you have patched the OS which should update the Olson TZ/zoneinfo file that localtime(3) and thus Perl's localtime() use. Sometimes this patches libc, sometimes /usr/share/.../zoneinfo/*, but either way it's updating an Olson TZ file aka zoneinfo.

HP Support Forums have a dst.pl script that uses Perl's localtime() to determine if Zonefile is correct or not. However, I've found it to not work on RHEL3 with Perl 5.8.0.

I'm suspecting that Perl from the RPM was built with GCC2 (glibc2.0, 2.3.2) while rest of RHEL3 is GCC3 (323). So there may be a stealth glibc2 whose stealth Olson needs refresh on my RHEL3. I was hoping someone here would have the answer to that instead of my bringing answers.