+
+=item get_tz_offset ( TIME )
+
+Return the time zone offset from GMT in the form +/-HHMM where HH is
+the number of hours from GMT and MM is the number of minutes. This is
+the equivalent of what strftime("%z", ...) would provide on a GNU
+platform.
+
+If TIME is not supplied, the current local time is used.
+
+=cut
+
+sub get_tz_offset {
+ # some systmes don't handle or mishandle %z, so be creative.
+ my $t = shift || time;
+ my $gm = timelocal(gmtime($t));
+ my $sign = qw( + + - )[ $t <=> $gm ];
+ return sprintf("%s%02d%02d", $sign, (gmtime(abs($t - $gm)))[2,1]);
+}
+
+