Can MySQL convert a stored UTC time to local timezone?

Question

Can MySQL convert a stored UTC time to local time-zoned time directly in a normal select statement?

Let\'s say you have some data with a timestamp (UTC).

Answer 1

1. Correctly setup your server:

On server, su to root and do this:

# mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql mysql

(Note that the command at the end is of course mysql and you're sending it to a table with the same name mysql.)

So, if you # ls /usr/share/zoneinfo you will see all the time zone info on ubuntu or almost any unixish server.

(BTW that's the convenient way to easily find out the exact official name of some time zone.)

2. It's then trivial in mysql:

For example

mysql> select ts, CONVERT_TZ(ts, 'UTC', 'Pacific/Tahiti') from example_table ;
+---------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| ts                  | CONVERT_TZ(ts, 'UTC', 'Pacific/Tahiti') |
+---------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| 2020-10-20 16:59:57 | 2020-10-20 06:59:57                     |
| 2020-10-20 17:02:59 | 2020-10-20 07:02:59                     |
| 2020-10-20 17:30:08 | 2020-10-20 07:30:08                     |
| 2020-10-20 18:36:29 | 2020-10-20 08:36:29                     |
| 2020-10-20 18:37:20 | 2020-10-20 08:37:20                     |
| 2020-10-20 18:37:20 | 2020-10-20 08:37:20                     |
| 2020-10-20 19:00:18 | 2020-10-20 09:00:18                     |
+---------------------+-----------------------------------------+