O comando mais apropriado parece ser zdump
.
$ zdump /etc/localtime
/etc/localtime Wed Aug 7 23:52:25 2013 EDT
$ zdump /usr/share/zoneinfo/* | tail -10
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Singapore Thu Aug 8 11:52:48 2013 SGT
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Turkey Thu Aug 8 06:52:48 2013 EEST
/usr/share/zoneinfo/UCT Thu Aug 8 03:52:48 2013 UCT
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Universal Thu Aug 8 03:52:48 2013 UTC
/usr/share/zoneinfo/US Thu Aug 8 03:52:48 2013
/usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC Thu Aug 8 03:52:48 2013 UTC
/usr/share/zoneinfo/WET Thu Aug 8 04:52:48 2013 WEST
/usr/share/zoneinfo/W-SU Thu Aug 8 07:52:48 2013 MSK
/usr/share/zoneinfo/zone.tab Thu Aug 8 03:52:48 2013
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Zulu Thu Aug 8 03:52:48 2013 UTC
Você também pode interrogar esses arquivos usando o comando file
:
$ file /etc/localtime
/etc/localtime: timezone data, version 2, 4 gmt time flags, 4 std time flags, no leap seconds, 235 transition times, 4 abbreviation chars
$ file /usr/share/zoneinfo/Singapore
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Singapore: timezone data, version 2, 8 gmt time flags, 8 std time flags, no leap seconds, 8 transition times, 8 abbreviation chars