Comments on: Getting the Time Zone from a Web Browser

By: Manoj Kumar Golhani

Manoj Kumar Golhani — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:33:56 +0000

Thanks,
It will Be usefull for me for a world wide application.
Regards
Manoj Kumar Golhani
Software Developer

By: Michael Smedberg

Michael Smedberg — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:57:21 +0000

NAC, your point is well taken. Using more “probe” datetimes would increase the accuracy of this code. You could even imagine a decision tree that chooses exactly the correct datetimes to differentiate between problematic timezones (e.g. there are timezones that were different in the past, but are now effectively the same.) In my case, that complexity wasn’t justified.
I’ve used ICU on server-side stuff before with a lot of success- it’s robust and full featured. It’s probably a good substitute for TZInfo if you would prefer to hack in Java or C++, but I think the end result is still Javascript, and I THINK that ICU doesn’t contain any “detect the timezone of the browser” type functionality (though I haven’t used ICU in a while- I could be behind the times.)

By: NAC

NAC — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:51:50 +0000

You can do better than this by also factoring in the transition times between daylight/non daylight savings time.

You’ll also find a great set of available data in the IBM ICU library, conveniently driven by Java or (IKVM) .NET.

ICU’s parse/format data is sufficiently detailed that I have used it to implement a complete JS Date/Time replacement class that provides localised parsing, formatting and GMT conversion for any global timezone independent of whatever the user’s browser is set to.

By: Dutch Marlowe

Dutch Marlowe — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 23:53:22 +0000

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had Firefox?

timezones = {
‘ACDT’ : ‘Australian Central Daylight Time’,
‘ACST’ : ‘Australian Central Standard Time’,
‘ADT’ : ‘Atlantic Daylight Time’,
‘AEDT’ : ‘Australian Eastern Daylight Time’,
‘AEST’ : ‘Australian Eastern Standard Time’,
‘AKDT’ : ‘Alaska Daylight Time’,
‘AKST’ : ‘Alaska Standard Time’,
‘AST’ : ‘Atlantic Standard Time’,
‘AWDT’ : ‘Australian Western Daylight Time’,
‘AWST’ : ‘Australian Western Standard Time’,
‘BST’ : ‘British Summer Time’,
‘CDT’ : ‘Central Daylight Time’,
‘CEDT’ : ‘Central European Daylight Time’,
‘CEST’ : ‘Central European Summer Time’,
‘CET’ : ‘Central European Time’,
‘CST’ : ‘Central Summer(Daylight) Time’,
‘CST’ : ‘Central Standard Time’,
‘CST’ : ‘Central Standard Time’,
‘CXT’ : ‘Christmas Island Time’,
‘EDT’ : ‘Eastern Daylight Time’,
‘EEDT’ : ‘Eastern European Daylight Time’,
‘EEST’ : ‘Eastern European Summer Time’,
‘EET’ : ‘Eastern European Time’,
‘EST’ : ‘Eastern Summer(Daylight) Time’,
‘EST’ : ‘Eastern Standard Time’,
‘EST’ : ‘Eastern Standard Time’,
‘GMT’ : ‘Greenwich Mean Time’,
‘HAA’ : ‘Heure Avancée de l\’Atlantique’,
‘HAC’ : ‘Heure Avancée du Centre’,
‘HADT’ : ‘Hawaii-Aleutian Daylight Time’,
‘HAE’ : ‘Heure Avancée de l\’Est’,
‘HAP’ : ‘Heure Avancée du Pacifique’,
‘HAR’ : ‘Heure Avancée des Rocheuses’,
‘HAST’ : ‘Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time’,
‘HAT’ : ‘Heure Avancée de Terre-Neuve’,
‘HAY’ : ‘Heure Avancée du Yukon’,
‘HNA’ : ‘Heure Normale de l\’Atlantique’,
‘HNC’ : ‘Heure Normale du Centre’,
‘HNE’ : ‘Heure Normale de l\’Est’,
‘HNP’ : ‘Heure Normale du Pacifique’,
‘HNR’ : ‘Heure Normale des Rocheuses’,
‘HNT’ : ‘Heure Normale de Terre-Neuve’,
‘HNY’ : ‘Heure Normale du Yukon’,
‘IST’ : ‘Irish Summer Time’,
‘MDT’ : ‘Mountain Daylight Time’,
‘MESZ’ : ‘Mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit’,
‘MEZ’ : ‘Mitteleuropäische Zeit’,
‘MST’ : ‘Mountain Standard Time’,
‘NDT’ : ‘Newfoundland Daylight Time’,
‘NFT’ : ‘Norfolk (Island) Time’,
‘NST’ : ‘Newfoundland Standard Time’,
‘PDT’ : ‘Pacific Daylight Time’,
‘PST’ : ‘Pacific Standard Time’,
‘UTC’ : ‘Coordinated Universal Time’,
‘WEDT’ : ‘Western European Daylight Time’,
‘WEST’ : ‘Western European Summer Time’,
‘WET’ : ‘Western European Time’,
‘WST’ : ‘Western Summer(Daylight) Time’,
‘WST’ : ‘Western Standard Time’
};

getZone = function() {
tz = timezones[new Date().toString().replace(/^.*$|$$/g, "")];
return tz || “Pacific (or something)”;
}
alert(getZone());