Re: storing TZ along timestamps

Excerpts from Josh Berkus's message of lun jul 18 18:37:15 -0400 2011:

> The timestamp and the timezone in which that timestamp was entered are
> two separate pieces of data and *ought* to be in two separate fields.
> For one thing, the question of "what timezone was this entered in" is an
> application-specific question, since you have three different potential
> timezones:
>
> * the actual client timezone
> * the actual server timezone
> * the application timezone if the application has configurable timezones
>
> In a builtin data type, which of those three would you pick? Only the
> application knows.

I think this whole discussion is built on the assumption that the client
timezone and the application timezone are one thing and the same; and
the server timezone is not relevant at all. If the app TZ is not the
client TZ, then the app will need fixed.

> Additionally, if you have your timestamp-with-original-timezone data
> type, then you're going to need to recode every single
> timestamp-handling function and operator to handle the new type.

I have my doubts about that, and I hope not. These details haven't been
discussed at all; I only started this thread to get community approval
on cataloguing the TZs.

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Álvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com>
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