** Using WeBWorK **

If trying to make changes in the Set Details page for a particular set, after clicking the "Save Changes" button I get the error "Time zone 'GMT/BST' not recognized". If I remove the "/BST" from each of the three times at the top, then I can save changes successfully. However, the "/BST" keeps coming back, thus I need to remove them every time I edit the page.

Is it possible to not have to do this every time I wish to edit the set? If so, how?

Michal

<| Post or View Comments |>

This is just a guess but I assume your "server" is adding the BST. One thing I would try is using just BST as the time zone, not GMT. Times are kept by WeBWorK in Perl format which is a (large) interger representing the number of seconds since 1/1/1980. But they are translated back and forth into a "human readable format" by standard routines and most likely these standard routines are having problems with GMT and certainly with 'GMT/BST'.

Arnie

<| Post or View Comments |>

I have changed it to BST - it has the same effect as setting to to GMT. The time zone then reverts back to GMT/BST when the page re-loads after making a change, such as removing a problem.

Michal.

<| Post or View Comments |>

That said the information in the original post below may still be useful.

We use the DateTime.pm module for calculating times. A reference is

http://datetime.perl.org/?Modules

where you can find out way more than you want to know. :-)

Try using Europe/London as your time zone for

$siteDefaults{timezone} = "Europe/London";

in global.conf

(We use America/New_York for the eastern seaboard in the US.)

There is a list of timezones as recognized by DateTime at:

http://search.cpan.org/dist/DateTime-TimeZone/

These timezones are more refined than standard timezone usage in that they include switches to daylight savings time ( for example some parts of a time zone may make the switch and others may not)

Hope this helps.

--Mike

<| Post or View Comments |>

We could avoid this if we output the canonical time zones instead (like "America/New_York"), but these are long and unweildy.

For the open/due/answer date boxes, another option would be to simply note the time zone in which the input will be interpreted off to the right, as a reminder, rather than having it be part of the editable field. This would not allow people to input dates in arbitrary time zones, but it would simplify things somewhat.
-sam

<| Post or View Comments |>

-- Mike

<| Post or View Comments |>