MySQL 8.0 guide with TIME Data Type and Timezone Conversion in UTC
I've been working on this all day and After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out... I'm reviewing some code and I'm working with a question with storing and retrieving TIME data types in MySQL 8.0. I have a table designed to track employee clock-in and clock-out times, and I'm using the TIME data type for these fields. However, when I store these times, I always set them in UTC. After retrieving them, I convert them back to the local timezone for display. I expected the display to be accurate, but it appears to be off by several hours in some cases. Here's what my table structure looks like: ```sql CREATE TABLE employee_attendance ( id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, employee_id INT NOT NULL, clock_in TIME NOT NULL, clock_out TIME NOT NULL ); ``` When inserting data, I do it like this: ```sql INSERT INTO employee_attendance (employee_id, clock_in, clock_out) VALUES (1, '08:00:00', '16:00:00'), (2, '09:00:00', '17:00:00'); ``` After inserting the data, I run this query to retrieve the times: ```sql SELECT employee_id, clock_in, clock_out FROM employee_attendance; ``` And then I convert the TIME values in my application (using Python and the datetime library) like this: ```python from datetime import datetime, timedelta # Assume retrieved_data contains the times in UTC from the database for row in retrieved_data: local_clock_in = (datetime.strptime(row['clock_in'], '%H:%M:%S') + timedelta(hours=timezone_offset)).time() local_clock_out = (datetime.strptime(row['clock_out'], '%H:%M:%S') + timedelta(hours=timezone_offset)).time() ``` The question arises when the `timezone_offset` is not consistent with Daylight Saving Time changes; it seems to retrieve the UTC time correctly, but when I convert it to local time, it can show an extra hour or miss an hour. I've verified that the correct offset is being calculated, but the displayed times are still inconsistent. Is there something I'm missing with MySQL's handling of TIME data types in conjunction with timezone conversions? Any guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated. This is happening in both development and production on Windows 11. I appreciate any insights! I've been using Python for about a year now. What's the correct way to implement this?