DateTime::TimeZone::Local(3)

NAME
DateTime::TimeZone::Local - Determine the local system's time zone

VERSION
version 2.67

SYNOPSIS
  my $tz = DateTime::TimeZone->new( name => 'local' );

  my $tz = DateTime::TimeZone::Local->TimeZone();

DESCRIPTION
This module provides an interface for determining the local system's time zone. Most of the functionality for doing this is in OS-specific subclasses.

USAGE
This class provides the following methods:

  DateTime::TimeZone::Local->TimeZone()
This attempts to load an appropriate subclass and asks it to find the local time zone. This method is called by when you pass "local" as the time zone name to "DateTime:TimeZone->new()".

If your OS is not explicitly handled, you can create a module with a name of the form "DateTime::TimeZone::Local::$^O". If it exists, it will be used instead of falling back to the Unix subclass.

If no OS-specific module exists, we fall back to using the Unix subclass.

See DateTime::TimeZone::Local::Unix, DateTime::TimeZone::Local::Android, DateTime::TimeZone::Local::hpux, DateTime::TimeZone::Local::Win32, and DateTime::TimeZone::Local::VMS for OS-specific details.

SUBCLASSING
If you want to make a new OS-specific subclass, there are several methods provided by this module you should know about.

  $class->Methods()
This method should be provided by your class. It should provide a list of methods that will be called to try to determine the local time zone.

Each of these methods is expected to return a new "DateTime::TimeZone" object if it can successfully determine the time zone.

  $class->FromEnv()
This method tries to find a valid time zone in an %ENV value. It calls "$class->EnvVars()" to determine which keys to look at.

To use this from a subclass, simply return "FromEnv" as one of the items from "$class->Methods()".

  $class->EnvVars()
This method should be provided by your subclass. It should return a list of env vars to be checked by "$class->FromEnv()".

Your class should always include the "TZ" key as one of the variables to check.

  $class->_IsValidName($name)
Given a possible time zone name, this returns a boolean indicating whether or not the name looks valid. It always return false for "local" in order to avoid infinite loops.

EXAMPLE SUBCLASS
Here is a simple example subclass:

  package DateTime::TimeZone::SomeOS;

  use strict;
  use warnings;

  use base 'DateTime::TimeZone::Local';

  sub Methods { qw( FromEnv FromEther ) }

  sub EnvVars { qw( TZ ZONE ) }

  sub FromEther
  {
      my $class = shift;

      ...
  }

SUPPORT
Bugs may be submitted at <https://github.com/houseabsolute/DateTime-TimeZone/issues>.

SOURCE
The source code repository for DateTime-TimeZone can be found at <https://github.com/houseabsolute/DateTime-TimeZone>.

AUTHOR
Dave Rolsky <autarch@urth.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2026 by Dave Rolsky.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this distribution.