RFE: Modification to the Timezone Modifier

[Marko Myllynen]

Hi,

the national recommendations in Finland for Finnish concerning date
strings containing timezone state that they should use format like
"UTC+3" or "UTC+5.30" [1]. strftime's %z prints something like "+0300"
but this clearly does not match the recommendations. With GNU date the
closest output one can get is "UTC+03" by using the "UTC%:::z" format
string which is much closer (but still not quite as recommended).

I've filed a RFE about glibc's strftime at
http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12747 in order to be able
to update the Finnish locale according to the recommendations. In the BZ
it was suggested to talk to Austin Group first about standardizing such
a modifier. I gather that an existing implementation or practice would
make such an attempt more likely to succeed.

Given that GNU date's "UTC%:::z" produces almost what we're looking for
full hours ("UTC+03" vs "UTC+3") I'm wondering would it be possible to
add support for GNU date to express timezone in a way to match the
aforementioned recommendations?

This might hopefully help in possible future discussions with Austin
Group which, if leading to positive results, could then in turn used as
basis for glibc strftime changes which would then, finally, allow
changing the Finnish locale as described above.

Naturally, if you have alternative ideas how to achieve what I'm looking
for I'd be more than happy to hear your suggestions.

1) http://kotoistus.fi/suositukset/vahv_kalenterit_cldr1_4.htm#Kellonajat

Thanks,

-- 
Marko Myllynen