Re: Daylight savings time confusion

On 22 Mar 2010, at 14:08, Rob Richardson wrote:

> One question: We have customers all over the world. It would be best
> if we could rely on the operating system (usually Windows Server 2003)
> to tell us what time zone we're in, rather than asking for a specific
> timezone when we want to know a wallclock time. Is that possible? If

Usually that timezone is set in the client program that connects to the database. If that program lives on a central location instead of at your customers' then you may be able to determine their timezone from the client they are using upstream and pass it along to the database server.

For example, web browsers often pass along what timezone they're connecting from, so you may be able to set the "client timezone" based on that information.

A drawback of storing a clients' timezone at the server is that you would be wrong if they are connecting from another location than they usually do, for example while at a conference in a different country. If you leave determining the timezone up to them you can't ever be wrong ;)

Alban Hertroys

--
If you can't see the forest for the trees,
cut the trees and you'll see there is no forest.

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