Re: automatic time zone conversion

...
> What seems strange to me is that '02/03/2002 12:00:00 AEST' has
> any meaning at all.  On March 2, Australia is observing DST, but
> AEST is Standard Time.  Shouldn't there at least be a warning
> when trying to insert a date that doesn't exist?

The date exists. The time zone *convention* exists. And you asked the
system to use those two. A warning at that point would just be pedantic
imho (and difficult and expensive to generate).

Other parts of this thread have given you some ideas on how to handle
these things consistantly, which seems to be a good start. You should
look at your docs to see how to compile 7.1.x with Australian time zone
conventions (I *think* that this was run-time parameterized for 7.2,
though it might have happened earlier). The docs have some information
on this (look in the User's Guide and in the appendix on "Date/Time
Support" for more details).

One of your other messages indicated that your TZ environment variable
is set as follows:

  TZ=EET-10EETDT,M10.5.0,M3.5.0

which would indicate that you are specifying *all* of the time zone
rules through that environment variable. Are the rules you are using not
available in any of your system-supplied time zone databases? Of the
huge number of time zones we already support for Australia, this one has
never been mentioned before but could be supported if necessary. It
would be the fifth instance of a naming conflict between Australian
conventions and other areas of the world.

Hope things are working better for you now...

                      - Thomas