[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="smcv"
 avatar="http://cdn.libravatar.org/avatar/0ee943fe632ff995f6f0f25b7167d03b"
 subject="comment 1"
 date="2016-12-26T19:26:25Z"
 content="""
`:/etc/localtime` is a glibc'ism, added to solve
[[bugs/without_timezone,_excessive_statting_causes_slowness]]. It means
\"read the contents or symlink destination of `/etc/localtime` and use that as
the active time zone\".

I would not recommend parsing that string, although you could.

ikiwiki sets the `TZ` environment variable to either `$config{timezone}`
or that default value during startup; so can't your plugin just use
local time unconditionally, via `time_zone => 'local'`, without ever
caring about which specific time zone that means?

(For example, the standard `IkiWiki::formattime` uses `localtime($time)` which
is basically a non-OO version of
`DateTime->from_epoch(epoch => $time, time_zone => 'local')`.)
"""]]