Timezone conversion by command line

Question

I can't figure out how to query http://www.google.com in a sane natural format like "5pm BST in PST".

Or do I have to write such an app?

What do you mean exactly? Command line linux? Command you can type into Google? What?!
command line in shell and google's query box are both a command line to me
perhaps a better tool would do cities by airport codes, 5pm LHR in SFO

harrymc · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-17 16:08:48Z

up vote 7 down vote accepted

It's 6pm in Taipei, what time is it here?

date --date='TZ="Asia/Taipei" 18:00'
Fri Jul 16 11:00:00 BST 2010

At 11am here in London, what time is it in Taipei?

TZ=Asia/Taipei date -d "11:00 BST"
Fri Jul 16 18:00:00 CST 2010

edited Jan 17 at 16:08

harrymc
111k454177

answered Jul 16 '10 at 10:23

hendry
299211

pixelbeat · Answer 2 · 2010-07-16 10:05:48Z

It gives the local time corresponding to 9AM on the west coast of the US, accounting for differing day light savings transitions.

date --date='TZ="America/Los_Angeles" 09:00 next Fri'

Use tzselect to get the TZ. The PST format is ambiguous. IST = Indian Standard Time and Irish Summer Time for example.

Didn't know about tzselect, thanks. If you enter wrong 'TZ' input you can get misleading results, e.g. TZ=London date Fri Jul 16 10:28:52 London 2010

slhck · Answer 3 · 2012-07-26 10:05:33Z

up vote 0 down vote

Use Wolfram Alpha. To the basic URL…

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=

append the conversion, with spaces replaced by +. For example:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5+PM+CET+to+PST

Note that Wolfram Alpha does not seem to recognize BST as a time zone.

edited Jul 26 '12 at 10:05

slhck♦
55.5k1089147

answered Jul 16 '10 at 10:07

drizzt
11

how does one quickly look up time zone codes? – hendry Jul 16 '10 at 10:31

3 Answers