Re: mod_perl, ENV{'TZ'}, and localtime

[Michael Schout]

Kirk Noda wrote:
> The thread seemed to die off.  Still, is there a way to use $ENV{TZ} to
> modify the behavior of localtime?

The reason this does not work under modperl version 2.0 is because under
handler "perl-script", %ENV is untied from the C environment.  The
localtime() function is implemented in C, and as a result, it will never
see the changes you made to $ENV{TZ} from mod_perl.

The way I got around this was to use Env::C, and override
CORE::localtime() with something like:

package MyLocaltime;

use Env::C;

sub import {
    my $class = shift;
    $class->export('CORE::GLOBAL', 'localtime');
}

sub localtime {
    my $time = shift;
    $time = time unless defined $time;

    my $orig_tz = Env::C::getenv('TZ');
    Env::C::setenv('TZ', $ENV{TZ}, 1);

    my @ret = CORE::localtime($time);

    Env::C::setenv('TZ', $orig_tz, 1);

    return @ret;
}

The real problem is that this is only safe under a prefork MPM because
it is not thread safe.  There really ought to be an option (IMO) where
you can make the untie of %ENV under perl-script to be optional.  Maybe
something like PerlOptions +NoUntieEnv or something so that if you are
running under a prefork MPM, you do not need to resort to tactics like
the above.

Regards,
Michael Schout