Re: Doubt on pg_timezone_names and pg_timezone_abbrevs - Mailing list pgsql-general

From David G. Johnston
Subject Re: Doubt on pg_timezone_names and pg_timezone_abbrevs
Date
Msg-id CAKFQuwawH6KnKLEU+h=vcsBE5UFkZ+S1sLp_tk6aVDPg3G5XoQ@mail.gmail.com
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In response to Doubt on pg_timezone_names and pg_timezone_abbrevs  (Jayadevan M <maymala.jayadevan@gmail.com>)
Responses Re: Doubt on pg_timezone_names and pg_timezone_abbrevs
List pgsql-general
On Mon, Mar 31, 2025 at 8:39 PM Jayadevan M <maymala.jayadevan@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello PG members,
I used 'IST'  in a query like this -  (timestamp_hour) at time zone 'IST' time_ist and did not get the expected output - timestamp in Indian Standard Time. So I queried the 2 views that provide timezone info and did not really understand the abbrev column. 
select name, abbrev, utc_offset  from pg_timezone_names  where abbrev = 'IST'  ;

Since the S and T are non-location specific you get 26 different timezone abbreviations to choose from. That wasn't enough for the world.  So IST is non-unique; and for historical reasons Ireland (Eire, which contains Dublin) is given default priority.
 
     name      | abbrev | utc_offset
---------------+--------+------------
 Eire          | IST    | 01:00:00
 Asia/Kolkata  | IST    | 05:30:00
 Asia/Calcutta | IST    | 05:30:00
 Europe/Dublin | IST    | 01:00:00

Suggest you adapt to using ISO names (the name column above) for timezones; which are long enough and location-specific enough to be unique.  In your case, pick your preferred spelling of Calcutta I suppose.

There is a way to get a different interpretation for IST to be recognized but I'd have to find it or wait for others to chime in.

David J.

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