Hey mark!

 ml> don't know where you got that from but it is not totally correct

From you in a prior messages, the latest being to Ozz stating, and I qoute;

 ml> while this is true, fidonet uses the TZUTC control line to store
 ml> the UTC offset so there is no confusion like you describe...
 ml> numbers without a sign are positive and the only sign used is
 ml> the '-' which easily indicates a negative...

The above is very similar to prior statements you have made about the TZUTC
control line.

 ml> it will be a number at some point to be able to do the math
 ml> needed...

An example usage would great.  Something like this that I would use for the
message I am replying to;

  date --date="10 Mar 19  10:25:00 -0400" = Sun Mar 10 14:25:00 UTC 2019

However in that case it doesn't show the conversion to a number(s), which I
would assume to be unixseconds, which is indeed a number representing seconds.

  date --date="10 Mar 19  10:25:00 -0400" +%s = 1552227900
  date --date="@1552227900" = Sun Mar 10 14:25:00 UTC 2019

I could compilcate the above by writing a program to use strftime() but I doubt
 it would be better than the above examples using coreutils' date.

Every available source I have seen never bothers to correct for utc offsets,
nevermind displaying the offset so that a reader can determine that the
displayed message originated in a different timezone.  If you know different
I'd appreciate hearing about it but from everything I have seen thus far the
TZUTC does absoultely nothing and is wrong given the lack of the + character
where applicable.

Life is good,
Maurice

... Don't cry for me I have vi.
--- GNU bash, version 5.0.2(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
 * Origin: Little Mikey's EuroPoint - Ladysmith BC, Canada (2:280/464.113)