What does the 'Z' mean in Unix timestamp '120314170138Z'?

Solution 1:

Yes. 'Z' stands for Zulu time, which is also GMT and UTC.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time:

The UTC time zone is sometimes denoted by the letter Z—a reference to the equivalent nautical time zone (GMT), which has been denoted by a Z since about 1950. The letter also refers to the "zone description" of zero hours, which has been used since 1920 (see time zone history). Since the NATO phonetic alphabet and amateur radio word for Z is "Zulu", UTC is sometimes known as Zulu time.

Technically, because the definition of nautical time zones is based on longitudinal position, the Z time is not exactly identical to the actual GMT time 'zone'. However, since it is primarily used as a reference time, it doesn't matter what area of Earth it applies to as long as everyone uses the same reference.

From wikipedia again, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautical_time:

Around 1950, a letter suffix was added to the zone description, assigning Z to the zero zone, and A–M (except J) to the east and N–Y to the west (J may be assigned to local time in non-nautical applications; zones M and Y have the same clock time but differ by 24 hours: a full day). These were to be vocalized using a phonetic alphabet which pronounces the letter Z as Zulu, leading sometimes to the use of the term "Zulu Time". The Greenwich time zone runs from 7.5°W to 7.5°E longitude, while zone A runs from 7.5°E to 22.5°E longitude, etc.

Solution 2:

The Z stands for 'Zulu' - your times are in UTC. From Wikipedia:

The UTC time zone is sometimes denoted by the letter Z—a reference to the equivalent nautical time zone (GMT), which has been denoted by a Z since about 1950. The letter also refers to the "zone description" of zero hours, which has been used since 1920 (see time zone history). Since the NATO phonetic alphabet and amateur radio word for Z is "Zulu", UTC is sometimes known as Zulu time. This is especially true in aviation, where Zulu is the universal standard.

Solution 3:

"Z" doesn't stand for "Zulu"

I don't have any more information than the Wikipedia article cited by the two existing answers, but I believe the interpretation that "Z" stands for "Zulu" is incorrect. UTC time is referred to as "Zulu time" because of the use of Z to identify it, not the other way around. The "Z" seems to have been used to mark the time zone as the "zero zone", in which case "Z" unsurprisingly stands for "zero" (assuming the following information from Wikipedia is accurate):

Around 1950, a letter suffix was added to the zone description, assigning Z to the zero zone, and A–M (except J) to the east and N–Y to the west (J may be assigned to local time in non-nautical applications — zones M and Y have the same clock time but differ by 24 hours: a full day). These can be vocalized using the NATO phonetic alphabet which pronounces the letter Z as Zulu, leading to the use of the term "Zulu Time" for Greenwich Mean Time, or UT1 from January 1, 1972 onward.