PostgreSQL Timestamps and Timezones: What You Need to Know—and What You Don’t

This summary provides an overview of the challenges and complexities of working with timestamps and timezones in PostgreSQL and YSQL. It highlights the importance of understanding the nuances of date-time data types, including timestamp, timestamptz, and interval, as well as how to specify the timezone correctly to avoid potential issues. The text emphasizes that using the dedicated date-time data types can simplify operations and reduce errors, and that avoiding common mistakes such as storing moment values as text or using plain timestamp for persistence can save effort and prevent bugs. The summary concludes by encouraging users of PostgreSQL to value the documentation provided in this post as a useful resource to complement the official PostgreSQL documentation.