Re: Timezone fun (bugs and a request)

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@dcc.uchile.cl> writes:
> First I initdb'd without TZ set.  So every time I start the server I get
> LOG:  could not recognize system timezone, defaulting to "Etc/GMT-4"
> HINT:  You can specify the correct timezone in postgresql.conf.

So what is your system timezone anyway (and what's the platform)?

> I then changed postgresql.conf to read
> timezone = unknown
> (the difference with the original setting is that the line isn't
> commented).  
> The server now behaves different; the timezone is set to GMT rather than
> being guessed from system settings.  I think they should work the same.

Hmm, that's strange.  I thought they would work the same.  Will look
into it.

> alvherre=# select '10:00:00'::time at time zone 'Chile/Continental';
> ERROR:  el huso horario "chile/continental" no es reconocido

This is functionality that never has existed.  We have perhaps some
chance of coding it now, but it's not a trivial bug fix.  The main
problem is that the timezone library API is still based around a global
tzset() setting.  We need it to be able to deal with timezone
definitions that are loaded (hopefully only once) but not selected as
the program-wide default.
        regards, tom lane