[wp-trac] Re: [WordPress Trac] #9758: GMT-relative timezones inverted

[WordPress Trac]

#9758: GMT-relative timezones inverted
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 Reporter:  andy         |        Type:  defect (bug)   
   Status:  new          |    Priority:  highest omg bbq
Milestone:  2.8          |   Component:  Date/Time      
  Version:               |    Severity:  blocker        
 Keywords:  needs-patch  |  
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Comment(by Otto42):

 This is not actually a bug, though it is confusing and we may need to
 address it.

 PHP (and by extension, the new timezone stuff) uses the
 timezonedb/zoneinfo/Olson DB to get the list of zones. From the Olson DB
 comments:

 {{{
 We use POSIX-style signs in the Zone names and the output abbreviations,
 even though this is the opposite of what many people expect. POSIX has
 positive signs west of Greenwich, but many people expect positive signs
 east of Greenwich. For example, TZ=’Etc/GMT+4′ uses the abbreviation
 “GMT+4″ and corresponds to 4 hours behind UTC (i.e. west of Greenwich)
 even though many people would expect it to mean 4 hours ahead of UTC (i.e.
 east of Greenwich).
 }}}

 In other words, this is actually intentional.

 We could add code to reverse the display of these in the dropdown listing
 to make it display more what people expect it to display, but internally,
 the representation is the way it needs to be for the zone correction
 mechanism to work correctly. Discuss, debate. The code is rather easy to
 do, just a simple regex to do the display name change while leaving the
 value blocks the same would do the trick.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/9758#comment:4>
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