Time zone handling can sometimes generate confusion, especially when dealing with data migrations to different host running on a different time zone, or when switching to a Daylight Saving Time (DST) time zone or when leap seconds are introduced. Will the stored date still make sense after changing a system-wide configuration? What happens when you migrate a server to another host? What is actually stored in the database?
There’s plenty of literature around about MySQL and time zone management, but there’s also missing information, because new features and fixes are constantly introduced into MySQL Server in this area. So I thought that spending a few words here to summarize how to best deal with time zones, and keeping this information up to date to reflect the current implementation …
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