Terminal script: getting the time in different world time zones

Sep 2021

#osx
#terminal

A little Bash script to show information about world time zones. Because I love my colleagues abroad, but I constantly struggle to remember how many hours ahead (or behind) they are.

I am using the script on a Mac, but it should work on other systems too with little or no changes. Basically, it scans the zoneinfo database (more info) that most likely already exists on your computer to return the rows matching an input string.

For example, what's the time in Australia right now?

$ wdate australia
/Australia/Melbourne               Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/Queensland              Tue 2021-10-12 19:47:48
/Australia/North                   Tue 2021-10-12 19:17:48
/Australia/Lord_Howe               Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/Adelaide                Tue 2021-10-12 20:17:48
/Australia/Yancowinna              Tue 2021-10-12 20:17:48
/Australia/Victoria                Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/Canberra                Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/Sydney                  Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/ACT                     Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/Eucla                   Tue 2021-10-12 18:32:48
/Australia/Brisbane                Tue 2021-10-12 19:47:48
/Australia/Tasmania                Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/Hobart                  Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/Perth                   Tue 2021-10-12 17:47:48
/Australia/South                   Tue 2021-10-12 20:17:48
/Australia/Lindeman                Tue 2021-10-12 19:47:48
/Australia/Darwin                  Tue 2021-10-12 19:17:48
/Australia/West                    Tue 2021-10-12 17:47:48
/Australia/LHI                     Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/NSW                     Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48
/Australia/Broken_Hill             Tue 2021-10-12 20:17:48
/Australia/Currie                  Tue 2021-10-12 20:47:48

Setup

Note: On my Mac, I found the zoneinfo database in this location:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pytz/zoneinfo/

This path is needed for the script to work. You can customize it, of course—see below for how to do it.

Save the file above, e.g., as wdate, and then make it executable:

chmod +x wdate

Troubleshoot

If you don't know where to find zoneinfo data on your computer, just search for it. For example, on a Mac:

mdfind -name zoneinfo

That will give you a list of possible candidates.