Re: Timezone database changes

On 10/11/07, Magne Mæhre <Magne.Mahre@sun.com> wrote:
> Trevor Talbot wrote:
> > Thinking that it might have had out of date zone rules brings up an
> > interesting scenario though.  Consider a closed (no networking or
> > global interest) filing system in a local organization's office, where
> > it's used to record the minutes of meetings and such via human input.
> > It would seem that the correct time to record in that case is in fact
> > the local time, not UTC.  If that system is left alone for years, and
> > does not receive any zone rule updates, it will likely begin storing
> > the wrong UTC values.  When the data is later transported out
> > (upgrade, archive, whatever), it will be incorrect unless you use that
> > particular snapshot of the zone rules.
> >
> > That situation might sound a bit contrived, but I think the real point
> > is that even for some records of observed times, the local time is the
> > authoritative one, not UTC.
>
> ...and for that scenario you have TIMESTAMP WITHOUT TIME ZONE

But that doesn't give you DST-sensitive display for free, which is
tempting for application use, especially if the application is meant
to be suitably generic.