from:"Keith"




On 23 July 2024 9:42:27 pm AEST, Greg Wooledge  wrote:
>On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 18:02:53 +1000, Keith Bainbridge wrote:
>> From the tab I had used earlier, ran  source .bashrc
>> 
>> then
>>  :/tmp/205.2024   $>mkcd /tmp/day$DOYR.$YEAR
>
>So you're setting those variables one time inside your .bashrc file?


The variables are in .bashrc.  I believed that was a good place to keep them.  
I'll check the original tomorrow, but it looks like a couple are there by 
default


I intended to list all variables in my original note. Seems I need to put them 
else where


>
>This is quite bad.  What happens when you have a terminal window that
>you open before midnight, and then continue using *after* midnight?
>Those variables will still be set to the previous day's values.

The day# in my command prompt increments when I start in the morning. Maybe I 
need to press enter.  I'll check tomorrow and confirm

>
>Also, why did you start three separate threads for this question?


I wasn't aware I had started new threads. I realised as soon as I read that 
comment, that all I had to do was reply to group with the addenda


>
>> So, now question is how can I get cron to 'source .bashrc'I'm thinking
>> add that line to my script?
>
>I would advise against it.  Who knows what kind of silly things your
>.bashrc may do that you wouldn't want an automated script to pick up.
>Even if you verify that your .bashrc is "cron safe" right now, you
>might add something to it a year from now, forgetting that you need
>it to remain "cron safe", and accidentally break the script.
>
>Any command that's supposed to act based on the current day will need
>to perform its *own* request to fetch the current day from the system
>clock.  It cannot rely on an environment variable set some unknown
>length of time in the past.
>
>Use the date command or bash's printf %()T inside your bash script to
>get the current date.

Right ooo
>
>Moreover, never make *two* calls to the system clock in the same script.
>If you need the Julian day number (%j) and also the calendar
>day-of-the-month number (%d), don't do this:
>
># WRONG
>julian=$(date +%j)
>dom=$(date +%d)
>
>That calls out to the system clock twice, and gets two different values.
>If the script is executed right at midnight, you might get two different
>days.
>
>Instead, only make *one* call.  There are a couple different ways to do
>this.  One is to get all the date(1) fields you need at once, and then
>parse them out:
>
>read -r julian dom < <(date "+%j %d")
>
>Another is to fetch the epoch time value (%s) and then use that value
>in all future calls.  With GNU date:
>
>now=$(date +%s)
>julian=$(date -d "@$now" +%j)
>dom=$(date -d "@$now" +%d)
>
>Or with bash's printf, on Linux or BSD:
>
>printf -v now '%(%s)T' -1
>printf -v julian '%(%j)T' "$now"
>printf -v dom '%(%d)T' "$now"
>
>(Bash 5.0 added an EPOCHSECONDS variable as well.)
>
>This same concept applies in any programming language you use.  It's not
>just a shell script thing, even though I'm showing shell script examples
>here.
>

Just quickly, from my tablet



More in the morning.


-- 


All the best

Keith BAINBRIDGE 

+61 447 667 468
keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@mail.com

GMT + 10
From my Apad

How to update environment variable output


Addendum  2

adding the full path to .bashrc failed

So I tried opening a new xterm tab and ran


 Tue 23Jul2024@17:07:43 205.2024 AEST
 :~   $>   mkcd /tmp/$DOYR.$YEAR
and landed in  /tmp/205.2024   $>

Looking good

From the tab I had used earlier, ran  source .bashrc

then
 :/tmp/205.2024   $>mkcd /tmp/day$DOYR.$YEAR

and landed in
 :/tmp/day205.2024   $> again, just as expected.


So, now question is how can I get cron to 'source .bashrc'I'm 
thinking add that line to my script?






Good afternoon All

For reference, today is  Tue 23Jul2024@15:41:47 205.2024 AEST

This is part of my command prompt, generated by

PS1='\n \u@\h \n\n $(date +"%a %d%b%Y@%H:%M:%S %j.%Y %Z") \n :\w   $>   '

My calculation is that today is day 205

When I run this function


mkcd ()
{
mkdir -p $1
cd $1
}
 in the form  :~   $>   mkcd 
/mnt/data/keith/Documents/$YEAR/$MTH$YEAR/$DOYR.$YEAR/


I am transferred to
/mnt/data/keith/Documents/2024/Jul2024/196.2024   $>ie $DOYR is 
using the wrong day number


So I cd to my home and run the commands separately, in the form

 :~   $>   mkdir -p /mnt/data/keith/Documents/$YEAR/$MTH$YEAR/$DOYR.$YEAR/

 keith@lenv0

 Tue 23Jul2024@15:38:24 205.2024 AEST
 :~   $>   cd /mnt/data/keith/Documents/$YEAR/$MTH$YEAR/$DOYR.$YEAR/

and land in /mnt/data/keith/Documents/2024/Jul2024/196.2024

 ls -lah /mnt/data/keith/Documents/2024/Jul2024
total 104K
drwxr-xr-x  8 keith keith 4.0K Jul 22 13:33 .
drwxr-xr-x 30 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 ..
sdrwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 22 13:33 196.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day189.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day192.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day193.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day194.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 22 13:21 day196.2024

shows that directory 196.2024 was created yesterday.   (My original 
format for the new dir was $MTH$YEAR/day$DOYR.$YEAR/   I took the 'day' 
out in case that was creating a problem that I haven't seen before.



OK then, I have 2 questions:

Why is the env var $DOYR not updating when I use it at the command 
prompt AND for that matter in a script - clearly the system is or I'd be 
getting the wrong day # at my command prompt?


Why am I not getting a warning that the dir already exists?

I want to run the script as a cron job, to keep a daily copy of a few 
files - mainly to prove that I can do it.


Thanks for any suggestions

By the bye, I expanded the date format for my command prompt as part of 
the discussion I started a few weeks back about the date the sender sent 
mail showing in a reply.


--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

How to update environment variable output


Addendum

So I tried opening a new xterm tab and ran


 Tue 23Jul2024@17:07:43 205.2024 AEST
 :~   $>   mkcd /tmp/$DOYR.$YEAR
and landed in  /tmp/205.2024   $>

Looking good

From the tab I had used earlier, ran  source .bashrc

then
 :/tmp/205.2024   $>mkcd /tmp/day$DOYR.$YEAR

and landed in
 :/tmp/day205.2024   $> again, just as expected.


So, now question is how can I get cron to 'source .bashrc'I'm 
thinking add that line to my script?






Good afternoon All

For reference, today is  Tue 23Jul2024@15:41:47 205.2024 AEST

This is part of my command prompt, generated by

PS1='\n \u@\h \n\n $(date +"%a %d%b%Y@%H:%M:%S %j.%Y %Z") \n :\w   $>   '

My calculation is that today is day 205

When I run this function


mkcd ()
{
mkdir -p $1
cd $1
}
 in the form  :~   $>   mkcd 
/mnt/data/keith/Documents/$YEAR/$MTH$YEAR/$DOYR.$YEAR/


I am transferred to
/mnt/data/keith/Documents/2024/Jul2024/196.2024   $>ie $DOYR is 
using the wrong day number


So I cd to my home and run the commands separately, in the form

 :~   $>   mkdir -p /mnt/data/keith/Documents/$YEAR/$MTH$YEAR/$DOYR.$YEAR/

 keith@lenv0

 Tue 23Jul2024@15:38:24 205.2024 AEST
 :~   $>   cd /mnt/data/keith/Documents/$YEAR/$MTH$YEAR/$DOYR.$YEAR/

and land in /mnt/data/keith/Documents/2024/Jul2024/196.2024

 ls -lah /mnt/data/keith/Documents/2024/Jul2024
total 104K
drwxr-xr-x  8 keith keith 4.0K Jul 22 13:33 .
drwxr-xr-x 30 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 ..
sdrwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 22 13:33 196.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day189.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day192.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day193.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day194.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 22 13:21 day196.2024

shows that directory 196.2024 was created yesterday.   (My original 
format for the new dir was $MTH$YEAR/day$DOYR.$YEAR/   I took the 'day' 
out in case that was creating a problem that I haven't seen before.



OK then, I have 2 questions:

Why is the env var $DOYR not updating when I use it at the command 
prompt AND for that matter in a script - clearly the system is or I'd be 
getting the wrong day # at my command prompt?


Why am I not getting a warning that the dir already exists?

I want to run the script as a cron job, to keep a daily copy of a few 
files - mainly to prove that I can do it.


Thanks for any suggestions

By the bye, I expanded the date format for my command prompt as part of 
the discussion I started a few weeks back about the date the sender sent 
mail showing in a reply.


--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

How to update environment variable output


Good afternoon All

For reference, today is  Tue 23Jul2024@15:41:47 205.2024 AEST

This is part of my command prompt, generated by

PS1='\n \u@\h \n\n $(date +"%a %d%b%Y@%H:%M:%S %j.%Y %Z") \n :\w   $>   '

My calculation is that today is day 205

When I run this function


mkcd ()
{
mkdir -p $1
cd $1
}
 in the form  :~   $>   mkcd 
/mnt/data/keith/Documents/$YEAR/$MTH$YEAR/$DOYR.$YEAR/


I am transferred to
/mnt/data/keith/Documents/2024/Jul2024/196.2024   $>ie $DOYR is 
using the wrong day number


So I cd to my home and run the commands separately, in the form

 :~   $>   mkdir -p /mnt/data/keith/Documents/$YEAR/$MTH$YEAR/$DOYR.$YEAR/

 keith@lenv0

 Tue 23Jul2024@15:38:24 205.2024 AEST
 :~   $>   cd /mnt/data/keith/Documents/$YEAR/$MTH$YEAR/$DOYR.$YEAR/

and land in /mnt/data/keith/Documents/2024/Jul2024/196.2024

 ls -lah /mnt/data/keith/Documents/2024/Jul2024
total 104K
drwxr-xr-x  8 keith keith 4.0K Jul 22 13:33 .
drwxr-xr-x 30 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 ..
sdrwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 22 13:33 196.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day189.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day192.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day193.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 13 11:53 day194.2024
drwxr-xr-x  2 keith keith 4.0K Jul 22 13:21 day196.2024

shows that directory 196.2024 was created yesterday.   (My original 
format for the new dir was $MTH$YEAR/day$DOYR.$YEAR/   I took the 'day' 
out in case that was creating a problem that I haven't seen before.



OK then, I have 2 questions:

Why is the env var $DOYR not updating when I use it at the command 
prompt AND for that matter in a script - clearly the system is or I'd be 
getting the wrong day # at my command prompt?


Why am I not getting a warning that the dir already exists?

I want to run the script as a cron job, to keep a daily copy of a few 
files - mainly to prove that I can do it.


Thanks for any suggestions

By the bye, I expanded the date format for my command prompt as part of 
the discussion I started a few weeks back about the date the sender sent 
mail showing in a reply.


--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: [SOLVED] Re: Acer Aspire 5 A515-45 touchpad suddenly stopped working on debian 12.5

2024-07-07 Thread Keith Bainbridge

On 6/7/24 16:39, Steinar Bang wrote:

Steinar Bang :

Sometime (a day or so maybe) before <2024-06-26 Wed 19:59> the touchpad
stopped working on my Acer Aspire 5 with a MATE desktop on debian 12.5.

At the time the laptop had gone 50 days since the last reboot so I
figured something had gone wrong during the time and a reboot would fix
it.

So in <2024-06-29 Sat 18:07> I did a reboot as a result of "apt
full-upgrade" to debian 12.5 and the touchpad still wasn't working.

I have been thinking that the cause may be
1. A hardware failure?
2. I accidentially pressed a keyboard combination that disables the
touchpad?
3. I have accidentially made some configuration change that disables
the touchpad?

The cause was number 2 and the key is F7 (without pressing the Fn key).

Pressing F7 gave me the touchpad back.

I decided to give this yet another try this morning and googled
combinations of "acer aspire 5 fn key disable touchpad"

I was told that Fn+F6 and Fn+F7 is supposed to toggle the touchpad on
many Acer laptops. But pressing Fn+F6 or Fn+F7 had no more effect than
anything else I had tried.

But one thing I discovered was that many people have had the
disappearing touchpad problem on Acer laptopns, also on Windows, and
have tried everything around upgrading drivers and even upgrading from
Windows 10 to Windows 11. So this is not a debian or GNU/linux specific
issue.

I am always reluctant to reboot but I decided I had to bite the bullet
and boot into BIOS and see what I could find there.

But I always, before doing anything, I do a quick google to see what I
can find, search string "acer aspire touchpad bios", and there I found
this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcerOfficial/comments/ug3xks/touchpad_not_working_at_all_for_my_aspire_5_tried/

Specifically this posting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcerOfficial/comments/ug3xks/comment/l1iia93/?utm_source=share_medium=web3x_name=web3xcss_term=1_content=share_button

So I tried F6 without Fn and the screen went black. One more press on F6
and I had the desktop back.

Then I tried F7 without Fn... nd touchpad was back.

I fully supports the rants in the posting linked to above.

Couldn't said it better myself.

Have you considered changing the bios so that the Fn keys need the Fn
key to alter the screen and touchpad and for that matter sound settings
etc accidently. It means the Fn keys will also function what was
considered normally for decades.

--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: Results of Testmail_1-3

2024-07-04 Thread Keith Bainbridge






On 5/7/24 13:13, Max Nikulin wrote:

On 05/07/2024 04:27, Michael Kjörling wrote:

On 4 Jul 2024 22:12 +0200, from Hans:

Weired thing at all.


This "testing" of yours, so far, involves about two dozen emails, each
of which sent to about 3000 people.


1. <https://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct>
Do not send "test" messages to determine whether your mail client is 
working.


2. There is <https://lists.debian.org/debian-lists-test/> (side note: 
I believed, it was mentioned either on the page cited above or on 
<https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMailingLists>)


3. <https://www.debian.org/support#usenet>
A lot of our mailing lists can be browsed as newsgroups, in the 
linux.debian.* hierarchy. 


is an alternative to fetch messages that do not pass through 
subscriber's mail provider. However not all headers may be available 
there




I wonder if the repeated replying to self has raised questions with the 
spam filters?


Hans,  do you have access to an alternate smtp server, maybe your ISP or 
gmail?


--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: how2 format a flash drive

2024-06-30 Thread Keith Bainbridge




On 30/6/24 06:43, mick.crane wrote:

On 2024-06-29 17:46, Lee wrote:


My gripes and difficulties are the same thing.  No universal image
viewer like Ifranview,


geeqie is quick,
something equivalent to notepad++,
Geany




+5 for geany
--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: How to get an email notification every time a package is updated upstream?

2024-06-30 Thread Keith Bainbridge




On 30/6/24 15:45, B wrote:



On 6/29/24 9:30 PM, John Crawley wrote:


rmadison will fetch data about package versions available in the 
Debian repositories.
Its output might be usefully parsed by a script. 


Thank you! I totally forgot about madison.

https://qa.debian.org/madison.php



What would happen if you ran:

sudo apt update && sudo apt list --upgradable

every hour or so via cron?   Cron can email the output I believe
--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file

2024-06-28 Thread Keith Bainbridge




On 28/6/24 16:13, John Crawley wrote:


Except that midnight is also 0:00, so you still have the am/pm confusion.
They should have kept 0:00 just for midnight really.



That's the first time I've seen anything to justify calling midnight AM.
Thankyou

But how can mid-day be after mid-day?   Ah: it has been set up as a 
convention.



--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 25/6/24 07:53, The Wanderer wrote:

Although I don't think anything or anyone actually does it this way, I
think strictly speaking the correct 12-hour notation for that time would
be "12:00 M" - followed by 12:00:01 PM, and preceded by 11:59:59 AM.



Sorry to repeat you - well you did it MUCH more eloquently
--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 24/6/24 23:41, Erwan David wrote:




AM/PM would not be so strange if between 11AM and 1 PM it was 12 AM ...


Umm   12Meridian??
--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 24/6/24 00:53, Curt wrote:

On 2024-06-23, Nicholas Geovanis  wrote:


I think we are losing sight of the fact that all of timekeeping is an
abstraction and over-generalization. Time zones were created to help
regularize railroad schedules over wide areas. Timezones are an abstraction
that permit us to _pretend_ that it is (physical) noon at the same clock
time over an extended area. When in fact physical high-noon, determined by
the sun's position in the sky, cannot be at the exact same time just a few
centimeters west or east of my eyeballs.



Well 150,000,000Km at 300,000Km/sec works out to 8min 20sec.   There may 
be a second or 2 if you use accurate distance and speed of light.  But 
then, the sun's circuit is slightly oval


--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 23/6/24 23:22, e...@gmx.us wrote:

On 6/23/24 02:30, gene heskett wrote:

A attribute the FCC forced on broadcasters as they like to see 
transmitter
logs kept in 24 hour time. I got so used to it that when I retired in 
2002,
I'd been on 24 hour time for 40 years and didn't convert back to two 
12 hour

periods a day.


I started using 24 hour time in junior high school with digital watches.  I
just thought it made more sense, especially for setting alarms.  Several
decades later I've not seen any reason to change, though it annoys my wife.

--
"Hear Me, for I am The Lord. I have seen your browser history, and am
wroth before it. Thus I shall strike down from the heavens a mighty blast,
and lo, [thou] shalt no longer have access to the naughty pictures."
sudo sudo The Book of Support, Chap 404 -- Osiris32 on TFTS




Sounds like a good argument for an analogue clock

--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 23/6/24 18:57, Brad Rogers wrote:

On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 15:35:14 +1000
Keith Bainbridge  wrote:

Hello Keith,


+14:00??   I've only ever heard of maxima of +/- 12:00.


AFAIAC, it was political willy waving, nothing more;  To be 'first' into
the new millennium.

As if that has any cachet whatsoever.



Now I see. They decreed that they were on the same day as Australia and 
New Zealand (apart from the odd hours). Makes sense. We both help assist 
them lots.  I just wasn't aware that a culture could do that.   But do 
the US protectorates in the west Pacific (like the place where our 
Julian Assange is in court this morning) also adjust there offset from 
UTC?  That would likely make more sense.



But the being first into the new millennium didn't work. All the IT 
gurus headed to New Zealand to see what was going to happen with Y2K bug.



--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 23/6/24 18:56, Brad Rogers wrote:

On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 13:01:10 +1000
Keith Bainbridge  wrote:

Hello Keith,


Not to mention some cultures change how words are spelt: colour, odour,
metres to quote a few.


Due, mainly, to the literacy of the people that moved, rather than any
deliberate choice.  That is, spelling was often a 'best guess'.

Oh, and in the UK, we used to spell it labor, too.  It changed over the
years to conform with colour, etc.  Not sure why, but possibly to do
with the Victorians insisting that language should conform to
(largely mathematical) rules.  However, as a keen family historian, with
many certificates with people's occupation on, one can witness the
changes in spelling over a decade or so, on that paperwork.



Our union based Australian Labor Party has resisted that change. Never 
was sure why until your explanation. Now makes sense.  But, I don't 
recall noticing the no 'u',  when I was handing out how to vote papers 
as a teeny-bopper and young adult.



--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 23/6/24 00:52, David Wright wrote:

Excellent. Now how do we get our MUA to do that when replying to mail,
which is where I saw what I thought was a system error - but in fact
was a misinterpretation.

I don't see the point. The email has a "Date:" header.


Sounds like I'm the only one who mis-read the date format when I raised 
the query originally.


Is David writing at 00:52 or is that time UTC?
--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 23/6/24 00:02, Greg Wooledge wrote:

In mutt, it would be:

 set date_format="!It's %a %d%b%Y at %H:%M:%S here, where clocks are UTC%z"



I believe UTC%Z will give the :

as I get from my text expander.

Tue 25Jun2024 at 18:34:20 =UTC +10:00
--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 23/6/24 14:25, David Wright wrote:

On Sun 23 Jun 2024 at 12:52:55 (+1000), Keith Bainbridge wrote:


Have you ever pondered why the 'international date line' is so convoluted?


Only on the odd occasion when an area decides to cross it, for
whatever reason. Like Samoa recently. And before that, the
creation of Pacific/Kiritimati (+14:00), which became a press
story at the start of the new millennium.



+14:00??   I've only ever heard of maxima of +/- 12:00.   But see below


As for odd time zones, we have a narrow one, somewhere between the
West Australian border (with Sth Aust) and the first notable town on
the road West - Norseman. It's 45 mins different from Sth Aust and the
a further 45 mins to main stream West Aust.  There might be 10,000
people live within it.


$ TZ=Pacific/Kiritamati date; TZ=Australia/Eucla date
Sun Jun 23 04:24:54 Pacific 2024
Sun Jun 23 13:09:54 +0845 2024
$



So Eucla: Sun Jun 23 13:09:54 would be UTC: Sun Jun 23 04:24:54
How do we get that time in the middle of the Pacific? Surely it would be 
Sat Jun22 18:24:54



And then I see a LOT of discussion on my suggestion about how MUA format 
the send time when people reply. I'll get back to that later.



Cheers,
David.



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UTC + 10:00

Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 23/6/24 00:53, David Wright wrote:

Styles change: there's a tendency in
English to evolve towards compound words, sometimes with hyphenation
along the way.


Not to mention some cultures change how words are spelt: colour, odour, 
metres to quote a few.


But don't fret.Some people pronounce the word for 1,000 metres as a 
measure of kills - kil-ometer. It should be kilo-metre.   To support my 
agruement, try speedometer, gasometer, odometer.



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Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file

On 23/6/24 12:08, Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
On Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 11:02 AM Stefan Monnier <mailto:monn...@iro.umontreal.ca>> wrote:

 > Yes, I realise that. The times are being displayed by the gettys,
 > controlled by the /etc/issue format string.  Jobs are being run
 > by cron, logs written by rsyslogd, and so on. And the term is … ?

Maybe there simply isn't such a term.  The subject is sufficiently
complex/delicate that there can't be a term for every single situation.

I think we are losing sight of the fact that all of timekeeping is an 
abstraction and over-generalization. Time zones were created to help 
regularize railroad schedules over wide areas. Timezones are an 
abstraction that permit us to _pretend_ that it is (physical) noon at 
the same clock time over an extended area. When in fact physical high- 
noon, determined by the sun's position in the sky, cannot be at the 
exact same time just a few centimeters west or east of my eyeballs.

         Stefan

I can't resist.

Have you ever pondered why the 'international date line' is so convoluted?

I reckon it would have been (almost) straight if UTC was set about 11° 
west of it's current position.

Any chance of fixing it?   Probably even less now that UK has left the EU.

As for odd time zones, we have a narrow one, somewhere between the West 
Australian border (with Sth Aust) and the first notable town on the road 
West - Norseman. It's 45 mins different from Sth Aust and the a further 
45 mins to main stream West Aust.  There might be 10,000 people live 
within it. I think that somewhere is Baledonia. I'll check next time 
I drive over, but that'll be sometime next year, if I'm lucky.

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Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 23/6/24 01:16, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

Possible. I was happy to forget that I had anything to do with
Windows 


Especially delving into the registry
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Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 21/6/24 14:28, David Wright wrote:

You could pronounce your time written above as:

   "It's Thu 20Jun2024 at 20:51:19 here, where clocks are UTC+10:00"


Excellent. Now how do we get our MUA to do that when replying to mail, 
which is where I saw what I thought was a system error - but in fact was 
a misinterpretation.


if that's indeed your intention. But what you've done is invent
some notation of your own, which people will likely misunderstand.

I think it best to look up these references and follow them:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601
   https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3339.txt


Will do


IMHO I think that email attributions are best presented in and with
the time zone of the sender, and not oneself.


Maybe that would be achieved if the replyer's MUA inserted the senders 
date/time more clearly.   I don't mean to harp on, but maybe the coders 
just haven't mis-read the dates they are inserting for us.





Cheers,
David.


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Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 20/6/24 21:19, The Wanderer wrote:

On 2024-06-20 at 07:10, Greg Wooledge wrote:


On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 21:00:38 +1000, Keith Bainbridge wrote:


https://manpages.debian.org/bookworm/manpages-dev/strftime.3.en.html

is a list of place names for MANY parts of a date layout. I have set up the
following code in my text substitution app:
"%a %d%b%Y at %H:%M:%S =UTC %Z"

Triggering that give me
Thu 20Jun2024 at 20:51:19 =UTC +10:00

Seems to me that if the code writers of our various MUA would add the +UTC
to the line that prints the various dates, we'd understand what they mean
better.


Honestly, I have no idea what the =UTC part of your output is intended
to mean, since you've got +10:00 (time zone offset specification in hours
ahead of UTC) overriding it.


I parsed it as meaning "[date and time] is equal to UTC plus ten hours",
or in other words, "the time specified is in the UTC+10 time-zone".
Similarly to how I often seen Eastern Standard Time referenced as UTC-4
(that is, UTC minus four hours).


Normally, you put either the string UTC to indicate that this date/time
string is in UTC, or a time zone offset indicator that begins with + or -.
Not both.


It may be notable that he didn't put a +- offset indicator; he put a
format specifier which *expands to* whichever such indicator would
correspond to the active time zone.



And doesn't this exchange show that
Sat 22Jun2024 at 18:27:55  +10:00

can be interpreted in two ways?



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Re: RTC, was Re: System time/timezone




On 20/6/24 11:51, Max Nikulin wrote:

On 20/06/2024 02:16, Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
Servers in data centers don't move around, they just sit there :-) So 
in my experience servers running anything non-windows have RTC set to 
local time. That's been on Red Hat/CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu.


My experience with Ubuntu is that its installer is able to guess 
timezone (GeoIP?) and it properly sets /etc/localtime symlink while RTC 
is in UTC. Try "timedatectl" or hwclock. Setting RTC to local time 
increases a chance of some mess due to DST or an administrative time jump.




My experience is that most installers do pretty well at guessing where I am
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Re: time display was: Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 18/6/24 00:56, debian-u...@howorth.org.uk wrote:

Keith Bainbridge  wrote:

On 16/6/24 23:50, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Sun, Jun 16, 2024 at 06:13:36PM +1000, Keith Bainbridge wrote:


It was late afternoon on 16Jun2024 that I wrote this. Possibly
18:13:36 when I pressed send. I'd reckon it would likely have been
08:13:36 UTC What's wrong with my system clock. I've not really
looked at the time on my originals before.  I'll try to remember to
enter my local time as I press send


I'm confused. Your time displays (Keith) look sensible to me, given
they are in local time for somewhere like Brisbane.


Yes - except Brisbane remains in the dark ages and doesn't follow day 
light saving; despite the fact that the majority of people want it. 
Seems the controlling interests still think the sun will fade the 
curtains or the cows won't know when to wake up to be milked. As if!




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Re: Time, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 18/6/24 03:24, e...@gmx.us wrote:


And I can never remember if the dot means AM or PM.  I suspect it changes
between implementations, or maybe I'm just very slow.


Probably only really meant to show us when we are setting an alarm at 
night, for the morning, that the dot is on one and off on the other. 
Else we'll wake a little late.


Remember the joke about going to bed at 8 and setting the alarm on a 
wind-up clock for 9 - we wouldn't get much sleep.

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UTC + 10:00

Re: Time, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 18/6/24 01:36, David Wright wrote:

Along with 350M Americans! They even use just A and P over here. And a
mere dot on digital clocks. (I see you've changed it already!)


I've been using 24 hour time and dMMM for a long time. I used send 
international cheques as part of my work, and decided that spelling the 
month was simple basics.



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Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 18/6/24 21:02, Greg Wooledge wrote:

In a previous message, you thought that your system clock or your time
zone was set wrong, because you read one of the attribution lines of
one of my replies, and you thought it said you had sent your message
at the wrong time.

As it turns out, I'm fairly certain you misread the attribution line,
which was reporting time in a 12-hour format, with "PM".  You saw the
06:... and thought it was saying you had sent your email at 6 AM, but
you missed the "PM" at the end.

As far as I know, it was a simple misread on your part, and nothing is
actually wrong.


Absolutely correct Greg.  I like your date/time line. The addition of 
the offset fro UTC without some explanation confused me.


And started 2 debates.
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UTC + 10:00

Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file

2024-06-20 Thread Keith Bainbridge




On 17/6/24 18:26, Keith Bainbridge wrote:


It was late afternoon on 16Jun2024 that I wrote this. Possibly 18:13:36 
when I pressed send. I'd reckon it would likely have been 08:13:36 UTC 
  What's wrong with my system clock. I've not really looked at the time 
on my originals before.  I'll try to remember to enter my local time as 
I press send



Evening folk - not good it seems. I can't find the separate thread that 
some wise person kindly started for this topic.Mm


Thanks for those responses. When I find the thread again, I'll read ALL 
the responses and respond better, if this doesn't reply to your general 
suggestion.


I reskon that they seem to indicate that the date/time in my original 
question are fine. the difficulty is more related to how we humans are 
interpreting the information we are reading.


https://manpages.debian.org/bookworm/manpages-dev/strftime.3.en.html

is a list of place names for MANY parts of a date layout. I have set up 
the following code in my text substitution app:

"%a %d%b%Y at %H:%M:%S =UTC %Z"

Triggering that give me
Thu 20Jun2024 at 20:51:19 =UTC +10:00

Seems to me that if the code writers of our various MUA would add the 
+UTC to the line that prints the various dates, we'd understand what 
they mean better.


Meantime, we have to accept what we have.

Thanks again.
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Fwd: test sent date details

2024-06-18 Thread Keith Bainbridge






All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
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+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00


 Forwarded Message 
Subject: test sent date details
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2024 17:56:41 +1000
From: Keith Bainbridge 
To: keithr...@gmail.com


All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file

2024-06-18 Thread Keith Bainbridge





On 17/6/24 21:22, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Mon, Jun 17, 2024 at 06:26:19PM +1000, Keith Bainbridge wrote:

On 16/6/24 23:50, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Sun, Jun 16, 2024 at 06:13:36PM +1000, Keith Bainbridge wrote:

It was late afternoon on 16Jun2024 that I wrote this. Possibly 18:13:36 when
I pressed send. I'd reckon it would likely have been 08:13:36 UTC  What's
wrong with my system clock. I've not really looked at the time on my
originals before.  I'll try to remember to enter my local time as I press
send


I'm back. The kitchen clock says 18:05. the sun has set. I have no 
reason to doubt the clock. So I'll answer Greg's questions



What does "date" say?  Paste the entire output.

$>   date
Tue 18 Jun 2024 18:06:31 AEST



What does "cat /etc/timezone" say?  Paste the entire output.


cat /etc/timezone
Australia/Melbourne

is as close as I can specify for my regional city


What does "ls -l /etc/localtime" say?  Paste the entire output.

ls -l /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Mar  4 21:00 /etc/localtime -> 
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Australia/Melbourne



Have you set the TZ environment variable?  If so, what did you set it to?

Not that I'm aware of

What time zone are you *actually* in?  Like, what country, and what major
city is nearest to you?


UTC +10:00

Australia, Geelong Our capital is Melbourne


Which NTP client are you running?  Have you checked up on it, to make
sure it's actually running, properly configured, and not spewing errors?


No, but why, when I believe everything I have answered is correct.

If it helps, I have the date as part of my command prompt, always 
appears right time after an enter; aliases and desktop short-cuts that 
give me the date and time reliably so far.


Greg, if there is something not right with my answer, please let me know.
Again thanks greatly for your help.


I saw another response about how the MUA deals with the senders date 
when replying. So fired up claws and sent myself a brief note. when 
replying to myself, the reply quoted



On 18/6/24 17:56, Keith Bainbridge wrote:

When forwarding that same note, the forward quoted



 Forwarded Message 
Subject: test sent date details
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2024 17:56:41 +1000
From: Keith Bainbridge 
To: keithr...@gmail.com

I'll forward this asap, to confirm the detail. Guess I could also alter 
address in a reply to send it here as well. Look for it shortly as well.


This makes me think that I need to adjust my MUA settings; thunderbird 
for this mail and my normal mail use; and claws for some use. claws has 
reply and forwarding templates with place holders for date formats 
amongst other items. I'll play around there as it's easier to start 
with. Item 1 will be change the date to read as it does in the forward 
Tue 18Jun2024.



Thanks all for your responses. I'll go through them all later tonight








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UTC + 10:00

Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 17/6/24 19:15, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Mon, Jun 17, 2024 at 06:47:41PM +1000, Keith Bainbridge wrote:


On 17/6/24 14:20, David Wright wrote:

Just some random thoughts:

On Sun 16 Jun 2024 at 18:13:36 (+1000), Keith Bainbridge wrote:


[...]


All the aliases that lie textually after the one with the missing '
will remain undefined, so you can use bisection to locate where in
the file problem lies.



If I didn't use a syntax matching editor this may have easily been my
problem.


I'm still pretty convinced that you're looking at a syntax problem.

Shell syntax is... not always trivial. I wouldn't trust most text editors
100% on that.

One thing you might try is to run your file through "bash -n" which checks
syntax without executing (well: it tries to: with languages like shell,
this is actually practically impossible).

Another thing would be to share your whole script here, but then you'll
want to make sure that there's nothing in there you want to consider
confidential.

Cheers


Good evening Tomas

bash -n on the original file (copied to a different name) through an 
error for a different alias from yesterday's efforts. So I added some 
blank lines. The error line number increased.  Deleted a few lines of 
text - ctrl-x to clip board manager - The error line number reduced. 
Repeated the delete bit a few more times, with the error moving accordingly.


So I pasted about 5 aliases and some blank space and a function name to 
a /tmp/file.  bash -n reported an error in a blank line between the 
previously reported error and the function name.  Added a few more 
aliases after the function and 2 syntax errors were report in one of 
these additional aliases. Deleted the function name - no errors.


I was checking the /tmp/file in less regularly with no apparent extra 
characters appearing.


So pasted the previously 'errant' aliases back to .bash_aliases - no 
error. So pasted back the rest of the cut aliases. Still no error.


I know that at some point of my research I noticed that the { on the 2nd 
line of the function had moved up -- next to the name () and  I 
think the first command was also on the first line. Can't say where I 
got that idea, but wish I knew, if only to warn folk off the site.


So Tomas, you're correct:Shell syntax is... not always trivial. I 
wouldn't trust most text editors 100% on that.


BUT how do we know where to look if the error is reported several lines 
above it's true position - admittedly blank lines; but?



So, I put the function name back in the /tmp/file but with no blanks 
above it, and got the 2 syntax errors on 1 line as before. Deleted all 
text below the function name, and the error line is now in the blank 
space below the function name.   Delete all blanks after the function () 
and saving the file inserts a blank line - where the error is now reported.


Thanks everyone. Enjoy your Monday. Mines almost over.

17Jun2024@22:00:38

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UTC + 10:00

Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file





On 16/6/24 20:02, DdB wrote:

Am 16.06.2024 um 10:13 schrieb Keith Bainbridge:> Practical Limitations

 Environment Variables: Bash has a limit on the number of environment
variables it can store, which is typically around 32,000. If you define
too many aliases, you may exceed this limit, causing issues with your
shell.

Hi,

  while being aware of those limitations, i got curious, as to why i
never ran into them in almpst 10 years of scripting. The answer is
probably, that i do use aliases only occasionally, most of the time i
use bash script files (in my path). And the largest file?

  Is actually one, i did not write myself, instead i found it on the
internet: checkbashisms. And even this big file only has 32K

So i am deferring, that you got into the habit to put most of your
scripting in one place, and that may be the wrong one. It's hard to
maintain and error-prone, as you are experiencing right now. Wouldn't it
be feasible to separate some of its volume out into normal bash files?

  Just my 2 cents
DdB



Thanks for your suggestion

Most of my aliases are simply simplifying shell commands like
alias llr='ls -lahR --group-directories-first'
or
alias du1='du -hPx --max-depth=1 '

The longer aliases were being converted to functions after I saw that 
recommendation here. This stopped when I made an error that stopped the 
functions from working as I expected.


I do little scripting as such; and most of that is processes I want done 
by cron, when a short one-line won't do.


17Jun2024@18:49:32

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UTC + 10:00

Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 16/6/24 23:20, Richard wrote:

"And udating the .bash_aliases kept giving me an error
referring to an end of file before the matching ' in one of the last
aliases."

This doesn't refer to a size limitation, but a syntax error. As in: 
the end of the file was reached before the matching ' was found. Either 
you mixed " and ' or you simply forgot to close an opened '. Ideally the 
error message will tell you the affected line.


Richard


Thanks Richard

I believe David raised very similar suggestions


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UTC + 10:00

Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file




On 17/6/24 14:20, David Wright wrote:

Just some random thoughts:

On Sun 16 Jun 2024 at 18:13:36 (+1000), Keith Bainbridge wrote:


Some of my aliases stopped working after months of working as I
expected. And udating the .bash_aliases kept giving me an error
referring to an end of file before the matching ' in one of the last
aliases.  So I did some searching.


Thanks David,



All the aliases that lie textually after the one with the missing '
will remain undefined, so you can use bisection to locate where in
the file problem lies.



If I didn't use a syntax matching editor this may have easily been my 
problem.


This is the line that was being reported as the incomplete alias, and a 
few that follow it:



alias srb='source  /home/keith/.bashrc'
#alias srz='source  ~/.zshrc'


alias rcrt='sudo crontab -e '
alias kcrt='crontab -e'

The editor changes the colour of the text from the opening ' to the next 
' in the file.  If that is the next alias while I am inserting a new one 
mid-file, the colour corrects when I type the closing 'That colour 
diff doesn't show here, but does in the editor - in the file I re-named 
for now.


I can see nothing different in the formatting of the reported error line 
from any others. And the supposed error worked from the moment I pasted 
it to the new file and ran


source .bashrc

One thing that still puzzles me is that when I #'d the errant line and 
source .bashrc  the error still reported the same line Number - even 
when #'d out.





So, is an alias a form of variable?  I had about 150 plus 4 functions


There's little chance of hitting bash's limits unless you're
generating the aliases or functions programmatically, and they'd
need naming systematically for you to be able to remember them all.



As I said to Greg - I don't understand this; so I don't know how I would 
have done it.



So I re-did my .bash_aliases file with only the bits I NEED; and all
is back to normal.


It looks like the error was in something that you judged you didn't need,
and you removed it.


No. The alias worked as soon as I activated it




When I got my aliases working, I checked the size of the old file -
17K. The new .bash_aliases is 2.5K with .bash_functions at 490B.


In any case, the bash limits you quoted were concerned with the number
of definitions, not the size of the files containing them.

Interesting that your aliases are on average as big as your functions.
About 90 of my aliases occupy 3.5k, whereas ~350 functions occupy 240k,
so averaging around 40 and 680 characters each, respectively.


To clarify the file sizes. The original 17K was about 150 aliases plus 4 
functions. The new aliases file at 2.5k is about 40 aliases plus several 
comments and blank lines. The finctions file is new yesterday and has 2 
functions (one of them 2 short commands).  I'll not likely get my 
functions much bigger - in the short term anyhow.





The errant function that failed after a little satisfactory use was to
mount a USB and back it up to my system. It is used to run portable
apps at a volunteer job - yes windows. I noticed that the sample
functions on the web didn't have && for each line, so I removed them
and performance is now back to what I expected.  The errant line was
the mount cmd. Originally if I had already mounted the USB, the
function kept going. I don't recall adding the &&, so it didn't dawn
on me to try removing them.  (I worked around it by unmounting it (an
alias) and trying the back-up again.)


I don't follow what this is about, particularly each line having (or
not having) a &&.


The only reason I raised this matter was that I had opened saying that 
my aliases were working. I originally thought that the function was my 
first sign of a problem  My ERROR. It became as aside to the question of 
env variable limits


17Jun2024@18:47:29



Cheers,
David.



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UTC + 10:00

Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file