Re: Oracle dates and timezones

From: Thomas J Kyte <tkyte_at_us.oracle.com>
Date: 1996/03/26
Message-ID: <4j7nn7$ptm_at_inet-nntp-gw-1.us.oracle.com>#1/1

quan_at_hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Suu Quan) wrote:

>9:48 am Mar 25, 1996 comp.databases.oracle Note 18147 of 184
>11 Oracle dates and timezones Resp 2 of 2
>quan_at_hpcc01.corp.hp.com Suu Quan at the HP Corporate notes server
 

> Seems like the Time Zone should be an intrinsic part of the DATE. Since
>Oracle does not do it, we -as user- will have to enforce it.
 

>What I mean is :
>every date column should be accompanied by a TZ column qualifier.
> xaction_time date,
> xaction_tz varchar(12),
> birth_date date,
> birth_tz varchar(12),
> xxx_time date,
> xxx_tz varchar(12)
 

> Comments ?

How do you sort it?

Birth Cert's don't even contain a time zone. You were born at 11:58pm on Such and Such a day in the year YYYY in the City X.

How do compare them?

Can you trust you client to give you the correct timezone information? (rhetorical question, the answer is no).

If all you have is one computer (no pc's, no mac's, just a single server and all host based apps) then we should store timezones.

If you have more then one computer (clients and A server or clients and many servers) spread out, then storing the time zone based on what the client tells us would be 'wrong'.

Thomas Kyte
tkyte_at_us.oracle.com
Oracle Government

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opinions and statements are mine and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oracle Corporation. Received on Tue Mar 26 1996 - 00:00:00 CET