bug#79261: coreutils 9.7 "date -u" - timezone offset is in the wrong direction

tag 79261 notabug
close 79261
stop

On 17/08/2025 17:02, James Feeney via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote:
> Arch Linux
> coreutils 9.7-1
> 
> $ timedatectl;date;date -u
>                 Local time: Sun 2025-08-17 09:50:24 MDT
>             Universal time: Sun 2025-08-17 15:50:24 UTC
>                   RTC time: Sun 2025-08-17 15:50:24
>                  Time zone: US/Mountain (MDT, -0600)
> System clock synchronized: yes
>                NTP service: active
>            RTC in local TZ: no
> Sun Aug 17 09:50:24 AM MDT 2025
> Sun Aug 17 03:50:24 PM UTC 2025
> 
> `timedatectl` is correct.
> `date` is correct.
> `date -u` is off by 2x the timezone offset, showing UTC as 6 hours earlier, which is wrong, instead of 6 hours later, which is correct.

I think you missed the "PM" in the output above.

cheers,
Pádraig