Re: timestamp (military) at time zone without the suffix - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Adrian Klaver
Subject Re: timestamp (military) at time zone without the suffix
Date
Msg-id 84450581-6f59-cf88-ee2c-eaa03f9bba87@aklaver.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: timestamp (military) at time zone without the suffix  (David Gauthier <davegauthierpg@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-general
On 07/11/2018 01:34 PM, David Gauthier wrote:
> Thanks Everyone, they all work, but TL's seems to be the simplest...
> select current_timestamp(0) at time zone 'utc'
> 
> I'm kinda stuck with the timestamp data type (vs timestamptz).  
> Wondering if I can stick with that.

The above is at little unclear. Can you change the data type or not?
If you can your life will be a lot easier if you change it to timestamptz.

> 
> One last question...
> I want to store the current UTC date/time in the DB.  Does PG 
> unconditionally store something like UTC, then let the queries figure 
> out how they want to look at it (with "at time zone" and "to_char()" 
> etc...) ?  Or do I have to intentionally store the UTC value somehow?

Per:

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/datatype-datetime.html

"For timestamp with time zone, the internally stored value is always in 
UTC (Universal Coordinated Time, traditionally known as Greenwich Mean 
Time, GMT). An input value that has an explicit time zone specified is 
converted to UTC using the appropriate offset for that time zone. If no 
time zone is stated in the input string, then it is assumed to be in the 
time zone indicated by the system's TimeZone parameter, and is converted 
to UTC using the offset for the timezone zone.

When a timestamp with time zone value is output, it is always converted 
from UTC to the current timezone zone, and displayed as local time in 
that zone. To see the time in another time zone, either change timezone 
or use the AT TIME ZONE construct (see Section 9.9.3).

Conversions between timestamp without time zone and timestamp with time 
zone normally assume that the timestamp without time zone value should 
be taken or given as timezone local time. A different time zone can be 
specified for the conversion using AT TIME ZONE."

> 
> Right now the code is just inserting and updating records using 
> "localtimestamp(0)".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 4:11 PM, David G. Johnston 
> <david.g.johnston@gmail.com <mailto:david.g.johnston@gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     On Wednesday, July 11, 2018, David Gauthier
>     <davegauthierpg@gmail.com <mailto:davegauthierpg@gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>         OK, the "to_char" gets rid of the timezone extension.  But the
>         times still don't make sense.
> 
>         When I go to store this in a DB, I want to store the UTC time. 
>         How d I do that ? 
> 
> 
>     Use the data type that represents exactly that, timestamptz.  Using
>     the timestamp data type is generally not what you want even if you
>     can get the manipulation logic figured out.
> 
>     David J.
> 
> 


-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com


pgsql-general by date:

Previous
From: Christopher Browne
Date:
Subject: Re: Open Source tool to deploy/promote PostgreSQL DDL
Next
From: Adrian Klaver
Date:
Subject: Re: timestamp (military) at time zone without the suffix