Time Zone Values

Vertica attempts to be compatible with the SQL standard definitions for time zones. However, the SQL standard has an odd mix of date and time types and capabilities. Obvious problems are:

To address these difficulties, OpenText recommends using Date/Time types that contain both date and time when you use time zones. OpenText recommends that you do not use the type TIME WITH TIME ZONE, even though it is supported it for legacy applications and for compliance with the SQL standard.

Time zones and time-zone conventions are influenced by political decisions, not just earth geometry. Time zones around the world became somewhat standardized during the 1900's, but continue to be prone to arbitrary changes, particularly with respect to daylight-savings rules.

Vertica currently supports daylight-savings rules over the time period 1902 through 2038, corresponding to the full range of conventional UNIX system time. Times outside that range are taken to be in "standard time" for the selected time zone, no matter what part of the year in which they occur. 

Example Description

PST

Pacific Standard Time

-8:00

ISO-8601 offset for PST

-800

ISO-8601 offset for PST

-8

ISO-8601 offset for PST

zulu

Military abbreviation for UTC

z

Short form of zulu